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