Cassandra Pybus
Australian historian and writer (born 1947)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cassandra Jean Pibus FAHA (born 29 September 1947) is an Australian historian and writer. She is a former professorial fellow in history at the University of Sydney, and has published extensively on Australian and American history.[1]
29 September 1947
- Historian
- biographer
- academic
Cassandra Pybus | |
|---|---|
| Born | Cassandra Jean Pybus 29 September 1947 Hobart, Tasmania, Australia |
| Occupation |
|
| Language | English |
| Nationality | Australian |
| Education | North Sydney Girls High School |
| Alma mater | University of Sydney |
| Notable awards | Colin Roderick Award (1993) National Biography Award (2021) |
Pybus was born in Hobart, Tasmania and educated at North Sydney Girls High School and the University of Sydney. Her mother, Betty Pybus, was a pioneer of women's health in Sydney and Tasmania.[2]
From 1989 to 1994, Pybus was editor of the literary magazine Island. She won the Colin Roderick Award in 1993 for Gross Moral Turpitude, a re-examination of the case of Sydney Sparkes Orr, a Northern Irish academic who became embroiled in a scandal involving a relationship with a student whilst working at the University of Tasmania.[3] In 2000, she won an Adelaide Festival Award for Literature for The Devil and James McAuley, a biography of the poet James McAuley.[4]
Pybus was awarded the Centenary Medal in 2001 for outstanding contribution to Tasmanian and Australian literature and education.[5]
In 2020 she was shortlisted for the Nonfiction Book Award at the Queensland Literary Awards for Truganini: Journey Through the Apocalypse[6] and for the Nonfiction prize at the 2021 Indie Book Awards[7] as well as the 2021 Biography book of the year at the Australian Book Industry Awards with Truganini.[8] In August 2021 she won the National Biography Award with Truganini,[9] while in November 2021 she was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.[10]
Her 2024 book, A Very Secret Trade, was shortlisted for the 2025 Victorian Premier's Prize for Nonfiction.[11]
Books
- A Very Secret Trade: The Dark Story of Gentlemen Collectors in Tasmania (2024)
- Truganini: Journey Through the Apocalypse (2020)[12]
- Enterprising Women: Gender Race and Power in the Revolutionary Atlantic (with Kit Candlin; 2015)[13]
- Other Middle Passages (edited with Marcus Rediker and Emma Christopher; 2007)[14]
- Epic Journeys of Freedom: Runaway slaves of the American Revolution and their global quest for liberty (2006)[15]
- Black Founders: The unknown story of Australia's first black settlers (2006)[16]
- The Woman who Walked to Russia: A writer's search for a lost legend (2002)[17]
- American Citizens, British Slaves: Yankee political prisoners in an Australian penal colony, 1839–1850 (with Hamish Maxwell-Stewart; 2002)[18]
- Raven Road (2001)[19]
- The Devil and James McAuley (1999)[20]
- Till Apples Grow on an Orange Tree (1998)[21]
- White Rajah: A Dynastic Intrigue (1996)[22]
- Gross Moral Turpitude: The Orr Case Reconsidered (1993)[23]
- Community of Thieves (1991)[24]