Geraldine Brooks is an accomplished author of historical fiction novels and a journalist. She was born in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and grew up in the inner-west suburb of Ashfield. Brooks received her education at Bethlehem College and the University of Sydney. After graduating, she worked as a reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald before moving to the United States. She won a Greg Shackleton Memorial Scholarship and earned a Master's degree at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
Brooks has written several novels that have gained international recognition, including "March," which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2005. She has also written "Year of Wonders," "People of the Book," and "The Secret Chord," among others. Besides being a novelist, Brooks is also a journalist who has covered crises in the Middle East, Africa, and the Balkans for The Wall Street Journal. She has received numerous awards for her work, including the Pulitzer Prize and the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal.
Brooks was brought up in a Jewish family and converted to Judaism after marrying Tony Horwitz, an American journalist, in 1984. They had two sons and two dogs and divided their time between their homes in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, and Sydney, Australia. However, Horwitz passed away in 2019, leaving Brooks to continue her writing career as a widow.
In addition to her novels and journalism, Brooks has also written three works of non-fiction, including "Nine Parts of Desire" and "Foreign Correspondence." She has been praised for her ability to bring historical events and figures to life in her fiction, as well as her insightful and compassionate journalism. Brooks continues to write and publish novels, and her work remains popular with readers around the world.