Colleen McCullough is a highly regarded Australian author, best known for her works of historical fiction, suspense novels, and fantasy novels. She is particularly famous for her Masters of Rome and Carmine Delmonico series. Prior to her career as a writer, McCullough worked as a neuroscientist in the Department of Neurology at Yale Medical School for ten years, during which time she wrote her first two books. She was born in Wellington, New South Wales, and lived in various places such as Sydney, London, and Connecticut, before settling on Norfolk Island, where she met her husband, Ric Robinson.
McCullough is recognized for her significant contributions to literature, having written a substantial collection of novels. She is most famous for her 1977 novel, The Thorn Birds, which gained widespread popularity and cemented her reputation as a renowned novelist. Although she worked in various genres, she is best known for her contributions to historical fiction and suspense novels.
Colleen Margaretta McCullough was born in Australia and had a varied career before turning to writing. She was raised in Wellington and Sydney and began writing stories at the age of five. After earning a physiology degree from the University of New South Wales in 1963, she planned to become a doctor but developed a violent allergy to hospital soap. She then turned to neurophysiology, the study of the nervous system's functions, and found jobs in London and at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. After the death of her younger brother in 1965, she quit writing, but returned to her craft in 1974 with the publication of Tim, a critically acclaimed novel about the romance between a female executive and a younger, mentally disabled gardener. In 1977, she began work on The Thorn Birds, a sprawling novel about the lives and loves of three generations of an Australian family, which became a record-breaking international bestseller. She wrote a total of 11 novels and lived on Norfolk Island in the South Pacific with her husband, Ric Robinson.