This article presents a list of the historical events and publications of Australian literature during 1988.
Events
*
Peter Carey won the 1988
Booker Prize
The Booker Prize, formerly the Booker Prize for Fiction (1969–2001) and the Man Booker Prize (2002–2019), is a prestigious literary award conferred each year for the best single work of sustained fiction written in the English language, wh ...
for ''
Oscar and Lucinda
''Oscar and Lucinda'' is a novel by Australian author Peter Carey. It won the 1988 Booker Prize the year it was released, and the 1989 Miles Franklin Award. It was shortlisted in 2008 for The Best of the Booker, in celebration of the prize's ...
''
* The
Miles Franklin Award
The Miles Franklin Literary Award is an annual literary prize awarded to "a novel which is of the highest literary merit and presents Australian life in any of its phases". The award was set up according to the Will (law), will of Miles Franklin ...
was not awarded this year as the date was changed from year of publication to year of announcement.
Major publications
Novels
*
Peter Carey — ''
Oscar and Lucinda
''Oscar and Lucinda'' is a novel by Australian author Peter Carey. It won the 1988 Booker Prize the year it was released, and the 1989 Miles Franklin Award. It was shortlisted in 2008 for The Best of the Booker, in celebration of the prize's ...
''
*
Liam Davison — ''The Velodrome''
*
Rodney Hall — ''
Captivity Captive''
*
Helen Hodgman — ''
Broken Words''
*
Dorothy Johnston
Dorothy Johnston (born 1948) is an Australian author of both crime and literary fiction. She has published novels, short stories and essays.
Born in Geelong, Victoria, Australia, Johnston trained as a teacher at the University of Melbourne an ...
— ''Maralinga, My Love''
*
Thomas Keneally
Thomas Michael Keneally, Officer of the Order of Australia, AO (born 7 October 1935) is an Australian novelist, playwright, essayist, and actor. He is best known for his historical fiction novel ''Schindler's Ark'', the story of Oskar Schindler' ...
— ''
Act of Grace''
*
Alex Miller — ''
Watching the Climbers on the Mountain''
*
Gerald Murnane
Gerald Murnane (born 25 February 1939) is an Australian novelist, short story writer, poet and essayist. Perhaps best known for his 1982 novel ''The Plains'', he has won acclaim for his distinctive prose and exploration of memory, identity and ...
— ''
Inland''
*
Morris West
Morris Langlo West (26 April 19169 October 1999) was an Australian novelist and playwright, best known for his novels ''The Devil's Advocate (West novel), The Devil's Advocate'' (1959), ''The Shoes of the Fisherman (novel), The Shoes of the Fi ...
— ''
Masterclass
Yanka Industries, Inc., doing business as MasterClass, is an American online education subscription platform on which students can access tutorials and lectures pre-recorded by experts in various fields. The concept for MasterClass was conceiv ...
''
*
Tim Winton
Timothy John Winton (born 4 August 1960) is an Australian writer. He has written novels, children's books, non-fiction books, and short stories. In 1997, he was named a Living Treasure by the National Trust of Australia, and has won the ...
— ''
In the Winter Dark''
Short stories
*
Rob Hood
Robert Maxwell Hood (born 24 July 1951) is an Australian writer and editor recognised as one of Australia's leading horror writers, although his work frequently crosses genre boundaries into science fiction, fantasy and crime.
He has publishe ...
— ''
Daydreaming on Company Time''
*
Olga Masters — ''The Rose Fancier''
*
Frank Moorhouse
Frank Thomas Moorhouse (21 December 1938 – 26 June 2022) was an Australian writer who won major national prizes for the short story, the novel, the essay and for script writing. His work has been published in the United Kingdom, France and t ...
— ''
Forty-Seventeen''
Children's and young adult fiction
*
Graeme Base — ''
The Eleventh Hour''
*
Hesba Fay Brinsmead — ''When You Come to the Ferry''
* Caroline MacDonald — ''
The Lake at the End of the World''
*
P. L. Travers — ''
Mary Poppins and the House Next Door''
*
Gillian Rubinstein
Gillian Rubinstein (born 29 August 1942) is an English-born children's author and playwright. Born in Potten End, Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, England, Rubinstein split her childhood between England and Nigeria, moving to Australia in 1973. As w ...
— ''Beyond the Labyrinth''
*
Tim Winton
Timothy John Winton (born 4 August 1960) is an Australian writer. He has written novels, children's books, non-fiction books, and short stories. In 1997, he was named a Living Treasure by the National Trust of Australia, and has won the ...
— ''
Jesse''
Crime fiction
*
Jon Cleary
Jon Stephen Cleary (22 November 191719 July 2010) was an Australian writer and novelist. He wrote numerous books, including '' The Sundowners'' (1951), a portrait of a rural family in the 1920s as they move from one job to the next, and '' The ...
— ''
Now and Then, Amen''
*
Peter Corris
Peter Robert Corris (8 May 1942 – 30 August 2018) was an Australian academic, historian, journalist and a novelist of historical and crime fiction. As crime fiction writer, he was described as "the Godfather of contemporary Australian crime-w ...
— ''
Man in the Shadows: A Short Novel and Six Stories''
*
Marele Day — ''The Life and Crimes of Harry Lavender'' (first in the Claudia Valentine series)
Science fiction and fantasy
*
Damien Broderick
Damien Francis Broderick (22 April 1944 – 19 April 2025) was an Australian science fiction and popular science writer and editor of some 74 books. ''The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction'' credits him with the first usage of the term ''virtual ...
** ''Matilda at the Speed of Light'' (edited)
** ''Striped Holes''
*
David J. Lake — ''West of the Moon''
Poetry
*
Gwen Harwood
Gwen Harwood (née Gwendoline Nessie Foster, 8 June 19205 December 1995) was an Australian poet and librettist. Harwood is regarded as one of Australia's finest poets, publishing over 420 works, including 386 poems and 13 librettos. She won num ...
— ''Bone Scan''
*
Judith Rodriguez — ''The House by Water: New and Selected Poems''
*
John Tranter
John Ernest Tranter (29 April 1943 – 21 April 2023) was an Australian poet, publisher and editor. He published more than twenty books of poetry; devising, with Jan Garrett, the long running ABC radio program ''Books and Writing''; and foundin ...
— ''Under Berlin''
Drama
*
Andrew Bovell — ''
After Dinner''
*
Jan Cornall — ''Escape from a Better Place''
Non-fiction
*
Tom Cole
Thomas Jeffery Cole (born April 28, 1949) is the U.S. representative for , serving since 2003. He is a member of the Republican Party and serves as the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. Before serving in the House of Representati ...
— ''Hell West and Crooked''
*
Peter Conrad — ''Down Home: Revisiting Tasmania''
*
Laurie Hergenhan (editor) — ''The Penguin New Literary History of Australia''
*
Eric Rolls — ''
A Million Wild Acres''
*
Dale Spender
Dale Spender (22 September 1943 – 21 November 2023) was an Australian feminist scholar, teacher, writer and consultant. In 1983, Dale Spender was co-founder of and editorial advisor to Pandora Press, the first of the feminist imprints devo ...
— ''Writing a New World: Two Centuries of Australian Women Writers''
Awards and honours
*
Dorothy Auchterlonie Green , for "service to Australian literature, particularly as a writer, critic and teacher"
*
Elizabeth Jolley , for "service to Australian literature"
*
Rosemary Wighton , for "public service, to literature and to the community"
*
Tom Hungerford , for "service to literature"
*
David Martin (poet)
David Martin (22 December 1915 – 1 July 1997), born Lajos or Ludwig Detsinyi, into a Jewish family in Hungary (then part of Austria-Hungary), was an Australian novelist, poet, playwright, journalist, editor, literary reviewer and lecturer. He ...
, for "service to Australian literature"
*
Gavin Souter , for "service to literature and journalism"
*
Len Beadell , for "service to the Public service and to literature"
Lifetime achievement
Literary
Fiction
International
National
Poetry
Children and Young Adult
Drama
Non-fiction
Deaths
A list, ordered by date of death (and, if the date is either unspecified or repeated,
ordered alphabetically by
surname
In many societies, a surname, family name, or last name is the mostly hereditary portion of one's personal name that indicates one's family. It is typically combined with a given name to form the full name of a person, although several give ...
) of deaths in 1988 of Australian literary figures, authors of written works or literature-related individuals follows, including year of birth.
* 4 January —
Alice Duncan-Kemp, writer and Indigenous rights activist (born
1901
December 13 of this year is the beginning of signed 32-bit Unix time, and is scheduled to end in January 19, 2038.
Summary
Political and military
1901 started with the unification of multiple British colonies in Australia on January ...
)
* 28 February —
Kylie Tennant, novelist, playwright, short-story writer, critic, biographer and historian (born
1912
This year is notable for Sinking of the Titanic, the sinking of the ''Titanic'', which occurred on April 15.
In Albania, this leap year runs with only 353 days as the country achieved switching from the Julian to Gregorian Calendar by skippin ...
)
* 31 July —
Stephen Murray-Smith, writer, editor and educator (born
1922
Events
January
* January 7 – Dáil Éireann (Irish Republic), Dáil Éireann, the parliament of the Irish Republic, ratifies the Anglo-Irish Treaty by 64–57 votes.
* January 10 – Arthur Griffith is elected President of Dáil Éirean ...
)
* 12 November —
Vincent Buckley, poet, teacher, editor, essayist and critic (born
1925
Events January
* January 1 – The Syrian Federation is officially dissolved, the State of Aleppo and the State of Damascus having been replaced by the State of Syria (1925–1930), State of Syria.
* January 3 – Benito Mussolini m ...
)
See also
*
1988 in Australia
The following lists events that happened during the year 1988 in Australia.
Incumbents
*Monarch – Elizabeth II
* Governor-General – Sir Ninian Stephen
*Prime Minister – Bob Hawke
** Deputy Prime Minister – Lionel Bowen
** Oppo ...
*
1988 in literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1988.
Events
*March 7 – Nine thousand movie and television writers of the Writers' Guild of America go on strike a day after rejecting a final offer from produc ...
*
1988 in poetry
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature (for instance, Irish or France).
Events
* The first annual ''The Best American Poetry'' volume is published this year.
* During a poetry reading in which p ...
*
List of years in literature
This article gives a chronological list of years in literature, with notable publications listed with their respective years and a small selection of notable events. The time covered in individual years covers Renaissance, Baroque and Modern liter ...
*
List of years in Australian literature
This page gives a chronological list of years in Australian literature (descending order), with notable publications and events listed with their respective years. The time covered in individual years covers the period of European settlement of ...
References
{{Years in Australian literature
1988 in Australia
Australian literature by year
20th-century Australian literature
1988 in literature