The Bay of Noon is a novel by the Australian author Shirley Hazzard

Shirley Hazzard

Shirley Hazzard is an Australian author of fiction and nonfiction. She was born in Australia, but holds citizenship in Great Britain and the United States...

, published in 1970. It was shortlisted for the Lost Man Booker Prize

Lost Man Booker Prize

The Lost Man Booker Prize was a special edition of the Man Booker Prize awarded by a public vote in 2010 to a novel from 1970, described by The New York Times as "an act of literary reparation"...

in 2010.

Synopsis

A young Englishwoman, Jenny, is working in Naples some years after WW2. Alone in the ruined city, she follows up a letter of introduction from an acquaintance, through which she meets Gioconda, a beautiful and gifted writer, and her lover Gianni, a noted Roman film director. Meanwhile at work she meets Justin, a Scotsman whose inscrutability Jenny finds mysteriously attractive. As Jenny becomes increasingly drawn in to the lives of the three, she discovers that the past is not easily forgotten.