Maria Hyland

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Maria Joan Hyland (born 6 June 1968) is an Australian novelist of Irish descent. She uses the form M. J. Hyland on her books. Her second novel — Carry Me Down — appears on the 2006 Man Booker Prize shortlist.

Contents

[edit] Life

Hyland was born in London. When she was two years old her family moved to Australia, but returned to Dublin after a couple of years, where Hyland spent her early childhood. When she was eleven years old, the family once again travelled to Australia, settling in Melbourne. After finishing school she worked briefly in film and television — appearing uncredited in an episode of Carson's Law and working for a time as a Director's Assistant on the Hinch program — before completing an Arts/Law degree at the University of Melbourne in 1996. She worked as a lawyer for about six years. In 2004 she completed a M.A. in English at the University of Melbourne.

Hyland moved to London in 2006. She currently lives in Rome thanks to an Australia Council scholarship[1]

[edit] Writing

Hyland was first published at the age of 17 in Australian Short Stories.[2]

Through the 1990s Hyland edited the now defunct literary magazine Nocturnal Submissions. One of her early stories was published in the magazine New York Stories, and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Since then her short stories have been published widely. Hyland can work painstakingly and has at times taken a week to write a single paragraph.[3] In 2002 she received an Australia Council grant to complete the final draft of her first novel, and to work on the first and second draft of a second novel about "family, first-love and lies."[4]

Her first novel How The Light Gets In (2004) was published by Penguin in Australia, and Canongate in the United Kingdom. It has been translated into many languages, was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize, and was a finalist in the 2005 Barnes and Noble Discover Award .

Her second novel, Carry Me Down, was published in 2006 by Canongate, and was shortlisted for the 2006 Man Booker Prize. Hyland's writing style has been described a claustrophic, and she has been dubbed "the mistress of the telling detail".[5]

[edit] Awards

  • The Sydney Morning Herald Award for Best Young Australian Novelist, 2004

[edit] Books

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Intro to ABC radio breaksfast segment 17 August 2006, with Fran Kelly
  2. ^ 'The Hot Seat: M. J. Hyland' in Sydney Morning Herald, October 7, 2006
  3. ^ outro to Fran Kelly interview on ABC radio, 17 August 2006
  4. ^ Australian Parliamentary Debates, Official Hansard, No. 4, 2003: the grant of $10,000 was awarded on 18 September 2002, "Final draft of a first novel about family and dysfunction told in the unconventional voice of a gifted teenage girl from a poor Sydney family who lives as an exchange student for a year in an affluent mid-west city in the US. First/second draft of a second novel about family, first-love and lies."
  5. ^ Australian Book Review online, 'Best Books of 2006'

[edit] External links

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