Social media users have slammed an obituary of Colleen McCullough as "sexist", "insensitive" and "revolting" for describing the internationally acclaimed Australian author as a person of "wit and warmth" despite being "plain" and "certainly overweight".
The popular writer, best known for her work The Thornbirds, which sold 30 million copies worldwide, died yesterday in a Norfolk Island hospital.
She was 77.
The obituary, published in The Australian, described the author as "plain of feature, and certainly overweight" who was "nevertheless, a woman of wit and warmth."
But social media users have expressed dismay and outrage that the broadsheet chose to open its oibituary by focussing on the author's physical attributes.
