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Simone Lazaroo Simone Lazaroo i(A24917 works by)
Born: Established: 1961
c
Singapore,
c
Southeast Asia, South and East Asia, Asia,
;
Gender: Female
Arrived in Australia: 1963
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BiographyHistory

Simone Lazaroo emigrated to Perth with her family at age two. In 1983 she completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at the then Western Australian Institute of Technology (now Curtin University). For several years she taught Art and English at various schools, and from 1988-1990 wrote resource materials for the Western Australian Ministry for Education. She turned to full-time writing when awarded a Creative Development Grant by the Western Australian Department for the Arts in 1990.

In 1993, her manuscript The World Waiting to be Made won the TAG Hungerford Award for unpublished fiction and was highly commended in the Australian/Vogel Literary Award. The novel was subsequently published in 1994. While The World Waiting to be Made was inspired by Lazaroo's own experiences she has used fiction to give it a life of its own. The theme of this first book is of an outsider fighting to find a place where she can belong, with the narrator trying to change her appearance to conform to what she perceives as Australian. In trying to reclaim herself, the narrator travels back to her father's family in Singapore and Malacca, where it seems she is also only partly accepted.

In 2004, Lazaroo submitted The True Body (a novel) and 'Recovering the Remains', (an essay) to the Faculty of Community Services, Education and Social Science, Edith Cowan University, Perth for her Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.).

Most Referenced Works

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon Sustenance Crawley : UWA Publishing , 2010 Z1706145 2010 single work novel In a small hotel on an island renowned for its hospitality and beauty, the Balinese staff and their Western guests are unexpectedly taken hostage. During the overnight siege, the hotel's cook is compelled by the crisis to provide spiritual and physical sustenance as best she can to the guests, staff and their poorly nourished captors. Reflecting on individuals' struggles to find meaning and love in the face of death, Sustenance is a compelling novel that reveals surprising ways in which people redeem themselves through fear and grief. -- From the publisher's media release.
2011 shortlisted Barbara Jefferis Award
y separately published work icon The Travel Writer Sydney : Picador , 2006 Z1305845 2006 single work novel (taught in 7 units) London, late 1980s. Ghislaine de Sequeira lies in a hospital bed. Once an obituary writer in Malacca, she had practised eloquence in the face of death for years. But now she is dying, and it is her bereft daughter Isabelle's turn to articulate the meaning of a life at its end. Isabelle tries to find an anchor in this storm by telling her mother's story and by seeking solace in her writing tutor, as many years ago her mother sought solace with the travel writer after the death of her own mother, Mathilde. Seeking to understand her mother's past choices in war-torn Malacca in light of her own persistent desire for love, Isabelle spins a version of Ghislaine's passion for the travel writer, a man who would alter Ghislaine's life - and that of Isabelle - completely. (Publisher's blurb)
2000 winner David T.K. Wong Fellowship First draft entitled The True Body.
2008 longlisted International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
2006 winner Western Australian Premier's Book Awards Fiction
The Censors' White Flare 2005 single work short story
2005 Patricia Hackett Prize Award shared with Marcella Polain.
Last amended 11 Nov 2009 14:52:31
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