Bryan Appleyard, of "The Independent", wants to know if Shirley Hazzard is the greatest novelist of the
20th century?
One of her novels, The Transit of Venus, was described to me by a man who knows as "the greatest novel written in the past 100 years". Having read it, I can see his point. Another, The Great Fire, so overwhelmed me that I came close to being unable to read the last three pages. If the last sentence doesn't make you gasp and weep, you are not fully conscious. Yet she is underappreciated. Oh, she has won awards here and there, but somehow she is not routinely listed among the greats of the contemporary novel. It is time to put this right.
