New Zealander author of novels and short stories set in his native land, which he has called “a last frontier for the human race, and a paradise lost.”

As a young man, Shadbolt worked as a documentary-film scriptwriter and a director and then turned to journalism. He became a full-time freelance journalist and writer in 1957. His first two collections of stories were The New Zealanders (1959) and Summer Fires and Winter Country (1963). A recurring theme of these stories is the cultural clash between New Zealand's urban, modern society and its rural, traditional people.

Shadbolt's first novel, Among the Cinders (1965), is noted for its satiric views of New Zealand's social and intellectual life and for Shadbolt's character Grandfather Hubert, who travels the country with his grandson. A dolphin that symbolizes good and its encounters with greedy, aggressive humans are the subject of Shadbolt's dark, symbolist novel This Summer's Dolphin (1969). An Ear of the Dragon (1971) is drawn from a volume of short stories by Renato Amato that he edited. In Strangers and Journeys (1972), he attempted to portray life in 20th-century New Zealand. Shadbolt's later works include Danger Zone (1975), Season of the Jew (1986), Monday's Warriors (1990), and Dove on the Waters (1996). His autobiographies, One of Ben's: A New Zealand Medley and From the Edge of the Sky, were published in 1993 and 1999, respectively. The recipient of numerous honours, Shadbolt was appointed Commander of the British Empire in 1989.