‘The Thorn Birds’ author dies, aged 77

Australian author Colleen McCullough, whose 1977 best-selling novel The Thorn Birds became a smash hit television miniseries, has died at the age of 77.

McCullough turned to writing after working for more than a decade as a neuroscientist in Australia, Britain, and the US and scored almost immediate success with The Thorn Birds, a family drama set on a sheep station in the Australian outback.

The paperback rights for The Thorn Birds sold for a then record $1.9m and was made into one of the most watched miniseries of all time, starring Richard Chamberlain and Rachel Ward. The book sold 30m copies worldwide.

McCullough died in hospital on Norfolk Island yesterday after a string of health problems, publisher HarperCollins Australia said.

McCullough had lived on the island, in the South Pacific, a territory for most of the past 40 years after marrying a local resident, Ric Robinson.

The most recent of her 25 works, Bittersweet, was published in 2013.

“She was one of the first Australian writers to succeed on the world stage,” HarperCollins Australia publishing director Shona Martyn said.