Diane Armstrong
Diane Armstrong is an Australian novelist, biographer and freelance journalist and travel writer.
Early life and move to Australia
Armstrong was born Danuta Julia Boguslawski in 1939 in Kraków, Poland, the family moving to Lwów soon after the Nazi invasion. She came to Australia on the SS Derna with her parents in November 1948, clearing customs in Melbourne, before disembarking in Brisbane. Six months later the family moving to Sydney. Her father was a dentist who had to re-qualify before he could practice in Australia.Awards and recognition
- National Biography Award, shortlisted for Mosaic
- Victorian Premier's Prize for Nonfiction, shortlisted for Mosaic
- New [South Wales Premier's Literary Awards], Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction, shortlisted for The Voyage of Their Lives
- Commonwealth Writers' Prize, Best First Book, South East Asia and South Pacific Region, shortlisted for the Winter Journey, 2006
- Society of Women Writers, New South Wales, SWW Book Awards, winner for Nocturne, 2009''''
Works
Non-fiction
- Mosaic: A Chronicle of Five Generations, Random House, Sydney, 1998 ; St Martin's Press, New York, 2001
- The Voyage of Their Lives: The Story of the SS Derna and its Passengers, Flamingo, Sydney, 2001
Fiction
- Nocturne, Fourth Estate, London, 2008
- Winter Journey, Fourth Estate, Sydney, London & New York, 2005
- Empire Day, HarperCollins, Sydney, 2011 ; Fourth Estate, London, 2011
- The Collaborator, HarperCollins, Sydney, 2019
- Dancing with the Enemy, HarperCollins, Sydney, 2022