Cassandra Pybus

Biography

Cassandra Pybus is an independent scholar and the author of twelve books. She has been the recipient of several Australia Council Fellowships and in 2001 was awarded a Federation of Australia Centenary Medal for outstanding contribution to literature.

She was ARC Professorial Fellow at the University of Tasmania (2002-2006) and the University of Sydney (2007-2012). She was also a Fulbright Professor at Georgetown University in Washington DC, (2001) Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Texas (2007-2009) and Leverhulme Visiting Professor at King’s College, London (2013).

Cassandra’s current research interrogates the trade in First People’s skeletal remains for her forthcoming book Mortal Possession, to be published in 2023 as the last of a trilogy that interrogates the destruction of the First People of Tasmania, which began with her first book, Community of Thieves, published in 1991, followed by Truganini in 2020, which won the National Biography Award. Other literary awards include: Colin Roderick Award in 1994 for Gross Moral Turpitude; Adelaide Festival Prize for Non Fiction in 2000 for The Devil and James McAuley; International Frederick Douglass Prize, Runner Up Award in 2007 for Epic Journeys of Freedom. She is also the writer and co-producer of A Regular Black: the hidden story of Wuthering Heights, a film made by Lone Star Productions London in 2008.