Lily Brett

Lily Brett

Lily Brett at 2024 Berlin Film Festival
BornLilijahne Brajtsztajn
(1946-09-05) 5 September 1946 (age 78)
Feldafing displaced persons camp, Bavaria, Germany
Occupation
  • Novelist
  • essayist
  • poet
LanguageEnglish
NationalityAustralian
Years active1966–present
Notable worksThe Auschwitz Poems, Things Could Be Worse, Just Like That, Too Many Men, You Gotta Have Balls, Lola Bensky
Notable awardsC. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry, Commonwealth Writers' Prize Prix Médicis étranger
Spouses
(m. 1968; div. 1979)
(m. 1981)
Children3
Website
lilybrett.com

Lily Brett OAM (born Lilijahne Brajtsztajn 5 September 1946) is an Australian novelist, essayist and poet. She lived in North Carlton and then Elwood/Caulfield (suburbs of Melbourne) from 1948 to 1968, in London 1968–1971, Melbourne (1971–1989) and then moved permanently to New York City. In Australia she had an early career as a pop music journalist, including writing for music magazine Go-Set from May 1966 to September 1968. From 1979 she started writing poems, prose fiction and non-fiction. As a daughter of Holocaust survivors, her works include depictions of family life including living in Melbourne and New York. Four of her fictional novels are Things Could Be Worse (1990), Just Like That (1994), Too Many Men (2001) and You Gotta Have Balls (2005).