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*Shortlisted for NSW Premier's History Awards 2020: Australian history prize*

*2021 National Biography Awards: Highly Commended*

One of The Bookshelf's Best Books of 2019

'A rare gem. This is biography at its best: boldly conceived and brilliantly written. In spare, haunting prose Cathy Perkins rescues Zora Cross from oblivion, re-establishing her as one of Australia's most remarkable literary figures. We see Zora's life through the stories of her relationships with others. The person that emerge — possessed by an irrepressible hunger to write and to be published — is impossible to pin down. In Perkins's hands, Zora Cross dances vividly before our eyes.' — Mark McKenna

Australian poet and journalist Zora Cross caused a sensation in 1917 with her book Songs of Love and Life. Here was a young woman who looked like a Sunday school teacher, celebrating sexual passion in a provocative series of sonnets. She was hailed as a genius, and many expected her to endure as a household name alongside Shakespeare and Rossetti. While Cross's fame didn't last, she kept writing through financial hardship, personal tragedies and two world wars, producing an impressive body of work. Her verse, prose and correspondence with the likes of Ethel Turner, George Robertson (of Angus & Robertson) and Mary Gilmore place Zora Cross among the key personalities of Australia's literary world in the early twentieth century. The Shelf Life of Zora Cross reveals the life of a neglected writer and intriguing person.

'I must confess I had