This article presents a list of the historical events and publications of Australian literature during 2012.
Events
*
Clive James
Clive James (born Vivian Leopold James; 7 October 1939 – 24 November 2019) was an Australian critic, journalist, broadcaster, writer and lyricist who lived and worked in the United Kingdom from 1962 until his death in 2019.Stuart Macintyre, Roy Masters, Ros Pesman and Carol Woodrow.
* Peter Carey is the recipient of the Bodleian Libraries' 2012 Bodley Medal. The medal is awarded by the Bodleian Libraries of the University of Oxford "to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the worlds in which the Bodleian is active: literature, culture, science, and communication".
* Incoming Premier
Campbell Newman
Campbell Kevin Thomas Newman (born 12 August 1963) is an Australian former politician who served as the 38th Premier of Queensland from 26 March 2012 to 14 February 2015. He served as the member for Ashgrove in the Legislative Assembly of Que ...
cancels the Queensland Premier's Literary Awards.
* In response, a week later, the new Queensland Literary Awards are announced. The awards use a crowd-funding campaign to raise the prize-money for their initial set of awards.
* Sophie Cunningham is appointed as the new head of the Australian Literature Board.
* In the Queen's Birthday Honours, Peter Carey,
Barbara Blackman
Barbara Blackman (née Patterson; 22 December 1928 – 4 October 2024) was an Australian writer and essayist, poet, librettist, radio broadcaster and interviewer, artist, artist's model and activist and philanthropist, who was a patron of the ...
,
Rolf Harris
Rolf Harris (30 March 1930 – 10 May 2023) was an Australian musician, television personality, painter, and actor. He used a variety of instruments in his performances, notably the didgeridoo and the Stylophone, and is credited with the inventi ...
, and Liz Jones were appointed Officers of the Order of Australia (AO),
Grahame Bond
Grahame John Bond AM (born 21 November 1943) is an Australian Bachelor Architecture, actor, writer, director, musician and composer, known primarily for his role as Aunty Jack.
Early career
Bond began his career in entertainment at University ...
and Peter Steele were appointed Members of the Order of Australia (AM), and
Peter Singer
Peter Albert David Singer (born 6 July 1946) is an Australian moral philosopher who is Emeritus Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. Singer's work specialises in applied ethics, approaching the subject from a secu ...
was appointed Companion of the Order of Australia (AC).
*
Text Publishing
Text Publishing is an Australian publisher of fiction and non-fiction, based in Melbourne, Victoria.
Company background
Text Media was founded in Melbourne in 1990 by Diana Gribble and Eric Beecher, along with designer Chong Weng Ho and oth ...
launches its Text Classics line, reprinting Australian literary classics.
* Melbourne City Council unveils "Literature Lane", a small laneway off Little LaTrobe Street near the State Library of Victoria, in recognition of Melbourne's status as a UNESCO City of Literature.
* The
Grace Leven Prize for Poetry
The Grace Leven Prize for Poetry was an annual poetry award in Australia, given in the name of Grace Leven who died in 1922. It was established by William Baylebridge who "made a provision for an annual poetry prize in memory of 'my benefactress ...
was discontinued.
Major publications
Literary fiction
* Romy Ash – ''Floundering''
*
Murray Bail
Murray Bail (born 22 September 1941) is an Australian writer of novels, short stories and non-fiction. In 1980 he shared the Age Book of the Year award for his novel ''Homesickness''.
He was born in Adelaide, South Australia, a son of Cyril Li ...
Brian Castro
Brian Albert Castro (born 1950) is an Australian novelist and essayist.
Early life and education
Castro was born at sea, between Macau and Hong Kong, in 1950. His father was of Spanish, Portuguese, and English descent, and born in Shanghai. His ...
Annah Faulkner
Annah Faulkner (1949/1950 – 8 March 2022) was an Australians, Australian novelist.
At the age of five, Faulkner moved with her parents to Papua New Guinea and later lived on Queensland's Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Sunshine Coast with her hu ...
Nine Days
Nine Days (stylized as ''ninedays'') is an American rock band from Long Island, New York. It was formed in the hamlet of St. James, Suffolk County, New York in 1994 by John Hampson and Brian Desveaux, and released three independent albums in ...
''
*
Tom Keneally
Thomas Michael Keneally, 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's rescue of Jews during the Hol ...
Christopher Koch
Christopher John Koch AO (16 July 1932 – 23 September 2013) was an Australian novelist, known for his 1978 novel '' The Year of Living Dangerously'', which was adapted into an Academy Award-winning film by the same name for which he co-wro ...
The Mountain
The Mountain () was a political group during the French Revolution. Its members, called the Montagnards (), sat on the highest benches in the National Convention. The term, first used during a session of the Legislative Assembly, came into ge ...
Patrick White
Patrick Victor Martindale White (28 May 1912 – 30 September 1990) was an Australian novelist and playwright who explored themes of religious experience, personal identity and the conflict between visionary individuals and a materialistic, co ...
Michael Gerard Bauer
Michael Gerard Bauer (born 1955 in Brisbane) is an Australian full-time children's and young adult author, and was formerly an English teacher.
Biography
Bauer was born in Brisbane and attended Marist College Ashgrove before attending the Univ ...
– ''Epic Fail''
*
Mem Fox
Merrion Frances "Mem" Fox AM (; born 5 March 1946) is an Australian writer of children's books and an educationalist specialising in literacy. Fox has been semi-retired since 1996, but she still writes and gives seminars. She lives in Adelaide ...
Morris Gleitzman
Morris Gleitzman (born 9 January 1953) is an Australian author of children's and young adult fiction.Morris ...
– ''After''
*
Sonya Hartnett
Sonya Louise Hartnett (born 23 March 1968) is an Australian author of fiction for adults, young adults, and children. She has been called "the finest Australian writer of her generation". For her career contribution to "children's and young adu ...
John Birmingham
John Birmingham (born 7 August 1964) is a British-born Australian author, known for the 1994 memoir ''He Died with a Felafel in His Hand'', the ''Axis of Time'' trilogy, and the well-received space opera series, the ''Cruel Stars'' trilogy.
...
Greg Egan
Greg Egan (born 20 August 1961) is an Australian science fiction writer and mathematician, best known for his works of hard science fiction. Egan has won multiple awards including the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, the Hugo Award, and the Lo ...
Garth Nix
Garth Richard Nix (born 19 July 1963) is an Australian writer who specialises in children's and young adult fantasy novels, notably the ''The Old Kingdom, Old Kingdom'', ''The Seventh Tower, Seventh Tower'' and ''The Keys to the Kingdom, Keys t ...
* Jessie Cole – ''Darkness on the Edge of Town''
*
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 ...
Kerry Greenwood
Kerry Isabelle Greenwood (17 June 1954 – 26 March 2025) was an Australian author and lawyer. She wrote many plays and books, most notably a string of historical detective novels centred on the character of Phryne Fisher, which was adapted a ...
– ''Unnatural Habits''
* Katherine Howell – ''Silent Fear''
* L. A. Larkin – ''Thirst''
* Gabrielle Lord – ''Death by Beauty''
* Zane Lovitt – ''The Midnight Promise''
*
Colleen McCullough
Colleen Margaretta McCullough (; married name Robinson, previously Ion-Robinson; 1 June 193729 January 2015) was an Australian author known for her novels, her most well-known being '' The Thorn Birds'' and '' The Ladies of Missalonghi''.
Lif ...
Adrian McKinty
Adrian McKinty is a Northern Irish writer of crime and mystery novels and young adult fiction, best known for his 2020 award-winning thriller, ''The Chain'', and the Sean Duffy novels set in Northern Ireland during The Troubles. He is a winner o ...
– ''The Cold, Cold Ground''
*
Tara Moss
Tara Rae Moss (born 2 October 1973) is a Canadian-Australian author, documentary maker and presenter, journalist and UNICEF national ambassador for child survival.
Biography
Moss was born in Victoria, British Columbia, where she attended schoo ...
Rosemary Dobson
Rosemary de Brissac Dobson, AO (18 June 192027 June 2012) was an Australian poet, who was also an illustrator, editor and anthologist.Anderson (1996) She published fourteen volumes of poetry, was published in almost every annual volume of ''Au ...
Liquid Nitrogen
Liquid nitrogen (LN2) is nitrogen in a liquid state at cryogenics, low temperature. Liquid nitrogen has a boiling point of about . It is produced industrially by fractional distillation of liquid air. It is a colorless, mobile liquid whose vis ...
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 ...
ed. – ''The Best Australian Poems 2012''
Biography
* John Bailey – ''Into the Unknown: The Tormented Life and Expeditions of Ludwig Leichhardt''
* Daryl Dellora – ''Michael Kirby: Law, Love and Life''
* Gideon Haigh – ''On Warne''
*
Jenny Hocking
Jennifer Jane Hocking is an Australian historian, political scientist and biographer. She is the inaugural Distinguished Whitlam Fellow with the Whitlam Institute at Western Sydney University, Emeritus Professor at Monash University, and ...
– ''Gough Whitlam: His Time: Volume 2''
* J. C. Kannemeyer – ''J. M. Coetzee: A Life in Writing''
*
Malcolm Knox
Sir Thomas Malcolm Knox (28 November 1900 – 6 April 1980) was a British philosopher who served as Principal of St Andrews University from 1953 to 1966 and vice-president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh from 1975 to 1978.
Biography
K ...
– ''Bradman's War: How the 1948 Invincibles Turned the Cricket Pitch into a Battlefield''
* Mungo MacCallum – ''The Good, the Bad and the Unlikely: Australia's Prime Ministers''
* David McKnight – ''Rupert Murdoch: An Investigation of Political Power''
*
Brenda Niall
Brenda Mary Niall (born 25 November 1930) is an Australian biographer, literary critic and journalist. She is noted for her work on Australia's well-known Boyd family of artists and writers. Educated at Genazzano FCJ College, in Kew, Victoria, ...
– ''True North: The Story of Mary and Elizabeth Durack''
Drama
*
Ian Meadows
Ian Meadows is an Australian actor, playwright and writer.
Early life and education
Born and raised in Collie, Western Australia, Meadows trained at Curtin University and the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA), graduating i ...
– ''
Between Two Waves
''Between Two Waves'' is a play by Australian playwright Ian Meadows. It was first produced by Griffin Theatre Company in 2012.
Plot
Daniel – a climatologist and advisor to the government – loses a lifetime of research in a flood. When F ...
Bruce Bennett
Bruce Bennett (born Harold Herman Brix, also credited Herman Brix; May 19, 1906 – February 24, 2007) was an American film and television actor who was a college athlete in football and in intercollegiate and international track-and-field co ...
, literary academic (born
1941
The Correlates of War project estimates this to be the deadliest year in human history in terms of conflict deaths, placing the death toll at 3.49 million. However, the Uppsala Conflict Data Program estimates that the subsequent year, 1942, wa ...
1915
Events
Below, the events of World War I have the "WWI" prefix.
January
*January – British physicist Sir Joseph Larmor publishes his observations on "The Influence of Local Atmospheric Cooling on Astronomical Refraction".
*January 1
* ...
)
*24 June – Ralph Elliott, critic and academic (born
1921
Events
January
* January 2
** The Association football club Cruzeiro Esporte Clube, from Belo Horizonte, is founded as the multi-sports club Palestra Italia by Italian expatriates in First Brazilian Republic, Brazil.
** The Spanish lin ...
)
* 27 June –
**
Rosemary Dobson
Rosemary de Brissac Dobson, AO (18 June 192027 June 2012) was an Australian poet, who was also an illustrator, editor and anthologist.Anderson (1996) She published fourteen volumes of poetry, was published in almost every annual volume of ''Au ...
, poet (born
1920
Events January
* January 1
** Polish–Soviet War: The Russian Red Army increases its troops along the Polish border from 4 divisions to 20.
** Kauniainen in Finland, completely surrounded by the city of Espoo, secedes from Espoo as its ow ...
)
**
Peter Steele
Peter Thomas Ratajczyk (January 4, 1962 – April 14, 2010), known professionally as Peter Steele, was an American musician, best known as the lead vocalist, bassist and composer of the gothic metal band Type O Negative. Before forming Type O N ...
, poet (born
1939
This year also marks the start of the World War II, Second World War, the largest and deadliest conflict in human history.
Events
Events related to World War II have a "WWII" prefix.
January
* January 1
** Coming into effect in Nazi Ger ...
)
* 6 August – Robert Hughes, writer and critic (born
1938
Events
January
* January 1 – state-owned enterprise, State-owned railway networks are created by merger, in France (SNCF) and the Netherlands (Nederlandse Spoorwegen – NS).
* January 20 – King Farouk of Egypt marries Saf ...
1942
The Uppsala Conflict Data Program project estimates this to be the deadliest year in human history in terms of conflict deaths, placing the death toll at 4.62 million. However, the Correlates of War estimates that the prior year, 1941, was th ...
)
* 14 October –
Max Fatchen
Maxwell Edgar Fatchen, AM (3 August 192014 October 2012) was an Australian children's writer and journalist.
Early life
Fatchen was born at "Narma" private hospital, South Terrace, Adelaide, the only son of Cecil William Fatchen and Isabe ...
, writer for children (born
1920
Events January
* January 1
** Polish–Soviet War: The Russian Red Army increases its troops along the Polish border from 4 divisions to 20.
** Kauniainen in Finland, completely surrounded by the city of Espoo, secedes from Espoo as its ow ...
)
* 22 November –
Bryce Courtenay
Arthur Bryce Courtenay, (14 August 1933 – 22 November 2012) was a South African-Australian advertising director and novelist. He is one of Australia's best-selling authors, notable for his book '' The Power of One''.
Background and early ye ...
, novelist (born
1933
Events
January
* January 11 – Australian aviator Sir Charles Kingsford Smith makes the first commercial flight between Australia and New Zealand.
* January 17 – The United States Congress votes in favour of Philippines independen ...
2012 in literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 2012.
Events
*January 1 – Copyright restrictions on James Joyce's major works are lifted on the first day of the year, 70 years having passed last year since hi ...
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 ...
*
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 ...
Literature
Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, Play (theatre), plays, and poetry, poems. It includes both print and Electroni ...