Commonwealth of Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It has a total area of , making it the sixth-largest country in ...

Western Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...

English literature English literature is literature written in the English language from the English-speaking world. The English language has developed over more than 1,400 years. The earliest forms of English, a set of Anglo-Frisian languages, Anglo-Frisian d ...

Aboriginality Aboriginal Australian identity, sometimes known as Aboriginality, is the perception of oneself as Aboriginal Australian, or the recognition by others of that identity. Aboriginal Australians are one of two Indigenous Australian groups of peopl ...

egalitarianism Egalitarianism (; also equalitarianism) is a school of thought within political philosophy that builds on the concept of social equality, prioritizing it for all people. Egalitarian doctrines are generally characterized by the idea that all hum ...

democracy Democracy (from , ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which political power is vested in the people or the population of a state. Under a minimalist definition of democracy, rulers are elected through competitiv ...

David Malouf David George Joseph Malouf (; born 20 March 1934) is an Australian poet, novelist, short story writer, playwright and Libretto, librettist. Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2008, Malouf has lectured at both the University ...

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' ...

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 ...

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.Henry Lawson, Banjo Paterson, C. J. Dennis and Dorothea Mackellar. Dennis wrote in the Australian vernacular, while Mackellar wrote the iconic patriotic poem'' My Country''. Lawson and Paterson clashed in the famous "

Bulletin Debate The "''Bulletin'' Debate" was a well-publicised dispute in '' The Bulletin'' magazine between two of Australia's best known writers and poets, Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson. The debate took place via a series of poems about the merits of li ...

" over the nature of life in Australia with Lawson considered to have the harder edged view of the Bush and Paterson the romantic. Lawson is widely regarded as one of Australia's greatest writers of short stories, while Paterson's poems remain amongst the most popular Australian bush poems. Significant poets of the 20th century included Dame Mary Gilmore, Kenneth Slessor, A. D. Hope and Judith Wright. Among the best known contemporary poets are Les Murray and Bruce Dawe, whose poems are often studied in Australian high schools. Novelists of classic Australian works include Marcus Clarke (''

For the Term of His Natural Life ''For the Term of His Natural Life'' is a story written by Marcus Clarke and published in ''The Australian Journal'' between 1870 and 1872 (as ''His Natural Life''). It was published as a novel in 1874 and is the best known novelisation of life ...

''),

Miles Franklin Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin (14 October 187919 September 1954), known as Miles Franklin, was an Australian writer and feminist who is best known for her novel ''My Brilliant Career'', published by Blackwoods of Edinburgh in 1901. While s ...

('' My Brilliant Career''), Henry Handel Richardson ('' The Fortunes of Richard Mahony''), Joseph Furphy ('' Such Is Life''), Rolf Boldrewood ('' Robbery Under Arms'') and Ruth Park ('' The Harp in the South''). In terms of children's literature,

Norman Lindsay Norman Alfred William Lindsay (22 February 1879 – 21 November 1969) was an Australian artist, etcher, sculptor, writer, art critic, novelist, cartoonist and amateur boxing, boxer. One of the most prolific and popular Australian artists of hi ...

(''

The Magic Pudding ''The'' is a grammatical article in English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The ...

''), Mem Fox ('' Possum Magic''), and May Gibbs ('' Snugglepot and Cuddlepie'') are among the Australian classics, while Melina Marchetta ('' Looking for Alibrandi'') is a modern YA classic. Eminent Australian playwrights have included Ray Lawler, David Williamson, Alan Seymour and Nick Enright. Among prominent short story writers are Steele Rudd, Henry Lawson, Beverley Farmer,

Kate Grenville Catherine Elizabeth Grenville (born 1950) is an Australian author. She has published fifteen books, including fiction, non-fiction, biography, and books about the writing process. In 2001, she won the Orange Prize for Fiction, Orange Prize for ...

, and Helen Garner. Although historically only a small proportion of Australia's population have lived outside the major cities, many of Australia's most distinctive stories and legends originate in the

outback The Outback is a remote, vast, sparsely populated area of Australia. The Outback is more remote than Australian bush, the bush. While often envisaged as being arid, the Outback regions extend from the northern to southern Australian coastli ...

, in the drovers and squatters and people of the barren, dusty plains.

David Unaipon David Ngunaitponi (28 September 1872 – 7 February 1967), known as David Unaipon, was an Aboriginal Australian preacher, inventor, and author. A Ngarrindjeri man, his contribution to Australian society helped to break many stereotypes of Abo ...

is known as the first Aboriginal author. Oodgeroo Noonuccal was the first

Aboriginal Australian Aboriginal Australians are the various indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, excluding the ethnically distinct people of the Torres Strait Islands. Humans first migrated to Australia 50,000 to 65,000 year ...

to publish a book of verse. A ground-breaking memoir about the experiences of the Stolen Generations can be found in Sally Morgan's '' My Place''. Charles Bean,

Geoffrey Blainey Geoffrey Norman Blainey, (born 11 March 1930) is an Australian historian, academic, best selling author and commentator. Blainey is noted for his authoritative texts on the economic and social history of Australia, including ''The Tyranny of ...

, Robert Hughes, Manning Clark, Claire Wright, and Marcia Langton are authors of important Australian histories.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers and themes

Writing by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people While his father, James Unaipon (c.1835-1907), contributed to accounts of Aboriginal mythology written by the missionary George Taplin,

David Unaipon David Ngunaitponi (28 September 1872 – 7 February 1967), known as David Unaipon, was an Aboriginal Australian preacher, inventor, and author. A Ngarrindjeri man, his contribution to Australian society helped to break many stereotypes of Abo ...

(1872–1967) provided the first accounts of Aboriginal mythology written by an Aboriginal: '' Legendary Tales of the Aborigines''. For this he is known as the first Aboriginal author. Oodgeroo Noonuccal (1920–1993) was a famous Aboriginal poet, writer and rights activist credited with publishing the first Aboriginal book of verse: '' We Are Going'' (1964). Sally Morgan's novel '' My Place'' was considered a breakthrough memoir in terms of bringing indigenous stories to wider notice. Leading Aboriginal activists Marcia Langton ( First Australians, 2008) and Noel Pearson ('' Up from the Mission'', 2009) are active contemporary contributors to Australian literature. The voices of

Indigenous Australians Indigenous Australians are people with familial heritage from, or recognised membership of, the various ethnic groups living within the territory of contemporary Australia prior to History of Australia (1788–1850), British colonisation. The ...

are being increasingly recognised and include the

playwright A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes play (theatre), plays, which are a form of drama that primarily consists of dialogue between Character (arts), characters and is intended for Theatre, theatrical performance rather than just Readin ...

Jack Davis and Kevin Gilbert. Writers coming to prominence in the 21st century include Kim Scott, Alexis Wright, Kate Howarth, Tara June Winch, Yvette Holt and Anita Heiss. Indigenous authors who have won Australia's high prestige

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 ...

include Kim Scott who was joint winner (with Thea Astley) in 2000 for '' Benang'' and again in 2011 for '' That Deadman Dance.'' Alexis Wright won the award in 2007 for her novel '' Carpentaria.'' Melissa Lucashenko won the award in 2019 for her novel '' Too Much Lip'', which was also short-listed for the Stella Prize for Australian women's writing. Letters written by notable Aboriginal leaders like Bennelong and Sir Douglas Nicholls are also retained as treasures of Australian literature, as is the historic Yirrkala bark petitions of 1963 which is the first traditional Aboriginal document recognised by the

Australian Parliament The Parliament of Australia (officially the Parliament of the Commonwealth and also known as the Federal Parliament) is the federal legislature of Australia. It consists of three elements: the Monarchy of Australia, monarch of Australia (repr ...

. AustLit's BlackWords project provides a comprehensive listing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Writers and Storytellers. Writing about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples At the point of the first colonization,

Indigenous Australians Indigenous Australians are people with familial heritage from, or recognised membership of, the various ethnic groups living within the territory of contemporary Australia prior to History of Australia (1788–1850), British colonisation. The ...

had not developed a system of writing, so the first literary accounts of Aboriginal people come from the journals of early European explorers, which contain descriptions of first contact, both violent and friendly. Early accounts by Dutch explorers and by the English buccaneer William Dampier wrote of the "natives of New Holland" as being "barbarous savages", but by the time of Captain

James Cook Captain (Royal Navy), Captain James Cook (7 November 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer, and cartographer famous for his three voyages of exploration to the Pacific and Southern Oceans, conducted between 176 ...

and

First Fleet The First Fleet were eleven British ships which transported a group of settlers to mainland Australia, marking the beginning of the History of Australia (1788–1850), European colonisation of Australia. It consisted of two Royal Navy vessel ...

marine Watkin Tench (the era of

Jean-Jacques Rousseau Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Republic of Geneva, Genevan philosopher (''philosophes, philosophe''), writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment through ...

), accounts of Aborigines were more sympathetic and romantic: "these people may truly be said to be in the pure state of nature, and may appear to some to be the most wretched upon the earth; but in reality they are far happier than ... we Europeans", wrote Cook in his journal on 23 August 1770. Noel Pearson 8Feb10

Many notable works have been written by non-indigenous Australians on Aboriginal themes. Examples include the poems of Judith Wright; ''

The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith ''The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith'' is a 1972 Booker Prize-nominated Australian novel by Thomas Keneally, and a 1978 Australian film of the same name directed by Fred Schepisi. The novel is based on the life of bushranger Jimmy Governor, the ...

'' by

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' ...

, ''Ilbarana'' by Donald Stuart, and the short story by

David Malouf David George Joseph Malouf (; born 20 March 1934) is an Australian poet, novelist, short story writer, playwright and Libretto, librettist. Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2008, Malouf has lectured at both the University ...

: "The Only Speaker of his Tongue". Histories covering Indigenous themes include Watkin Tench (Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay et Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson); Roderick J. Flanagan (''The Aborigines of Australia'', 1888); ''The Native Tribes of Central Australia'' by Spencer and Gillen, 1899; the diaries of Donald Thomson on the subject of the Yolngu people of

Arnhem Land Arnhem Land is a historical region of the Northern Territory of Australia. It is located in the north-eastern corner of the territory and is around from the territorial capital, Darwin, Northern Territory, Darwin. In 1623, Dutch East India Compa ...

(c.1935-1943); Alan Moorehead (''The fatal Impact'', 1966);

Geoffrey Blainey Geoffrey Norman Blainey, (born 11 March 1930) is an Australian historian, academic, best selling author and commentator. Blainey is noted for his authoritative texts on the economic and social history of Australia, including ''The Tyranny of ...

(''Triumph of the Nomads'', 1975); Henry Reynolds ('' The Other Side of the Frontier'', 1981); and Marcia Langton (First Australians, 2008). Differing interpretations of Aboriginal history are also the subject of contemporary debate in Australia, notably between the essayists Robert Manne and Keith Windschuttle.

Early and classic works

For centuries before the British settlement of Australia, European writers wrote fictional accounts of an imagining of a ''Great Southern Land''. In 1642 Abel Janszoon Tasman landed in

Tasmania Tasmania (; palawa kani: ''Lutruwita'') is an island States and territories of Australia, state of Australia. It is located to the south of the Mainland Australia, Australian mainland, and is separated from it by the Bass Strait. The sta ...

and after examining notches cut at considerable distances on tree trunks, speculated that the newly discovered country must be peopled by giants. Later, the British satirist,

Jonathan Swift Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish writer, essayist, satirist, and Anglican cleric. In 1713, he became the Dean (Christianity), dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, and was given the sobriquet "Dean Swi ...

, set the land of the Houyhnhnms of

Gulliver's Travels ''Gulliver's Travels'', originally titled ''Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships'', is a 1726 prose satire by the Anglo-Irish writer and clerg ...

to the west of Tasmania. In 1797 the British Romantic poet Robert Southey—then a young

Jacobin The Society of the Friends of the Constitution (), renamed the Society of the Jacobins, Friends of Freedom and Equality () after 1792 and commonly known as the Jacobin Club () or simply the Jacobins (; ), was the most influential political cl ...

—included a section in his collection, "Poems", a selection of poems under the heading, "Botany Bay Eclogues," in which he portrayed the plight and stories of transported convicts in

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

. Among the first true works of literature produced in Australia were the accounts of the settlement of Sydney by Watkin Tench, a captain of the marines on the

First Fleet The First Fleet were eleven British ships which transported a group of settlers to mainland Australia, marking the beginning of the History of Australia (1788–1850), European colonisation of Australia. It consisted of two Royal Navy vessel ...

to arrive in 1788. In 1819, poet, explorer, journalist and politician William Wentworth published the first book written by an Australian: ''A Statistical, Historical, and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and Its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land, With a Particular Enumeration of the Advantages Which These Colonies Offer for Emigration and Their Superiority in Many Respects Over Those Possessed by the United States of America'', in which he advocated an elected assembly for New South Wales, trial by jury and settlement of Australia by free emigrants rather than convicts. The first novel to be published in Australia was a crime novel, ''Quintus Servinton: A Tale founded upon Incidents of Real Occurrence'' by

Henry Savery Henry Savery (4 August 1791 – 6 February 1842) was a Convictism in Australia, convict transported to Port Arthur, Tasmania, and Australia's first novelist. It is generally agreed that his writing is more important for its historical value than ...

published in Hobart in 1830. Early popular works tended to be the 'ripping yarn' variety, telling tales of derring-do against the new

frontier A frontier is a political and geographical term referring to areas near or beyond a boundary. Australia The term "frontier" was frequently used in colonial Australia in the meaning of country that borders the unknown or uncivilised, th ...

of the Australian

outback The Outback is a remote, vast, sparsely populated area of Australia. The Outback is more remote than Australian bush, the bush. While often envisaged as being arid, the Outback regions extend from the northern to southern Australian coastli ...

. Writers such as Rolf Boldrewood ('' Robbery Under Arms''), Marcus Clarke (''

For the Term of His Natural Life ''For the Term of His Natural Life'' is a story written by Marcus Clarke and published in ''The Australian Journal'' between 1870 and 1872 (as ''His Natural Life''). It was published as a novel in 1874 and is the best known novelisation of life ...

''), Henry Handel Richardson ('' The Fortunes of Richard Mahony'') and Joseph Furphy ('' Such Is Life'') embodied these stirring ideals in their tales and, particularly the latter, tried to accurately record the

vernacular Vernacular is the ordinary, informal, spoken language, spoken form of language, particularly when perceptual dialectology, perceived as having lower social status or less Prestige (sociolinguistics), prestige than standard language, which is mor ...

language of the common Australian. These

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living wage, living writing novels and other fiction, while other ...

s also gave valuable insights into the

penal colonies A penal colony or exile colony is a Human settlement, settlement used to exile prisoners and separate them from the general population by placing them in a remote location, often an island or distant colony, colonial territory. Although the te ...

which helped form the country and also the early rural settlements. In 1838 ''The Guardian: a tale'' by Anna Maria Bunn was published in Sydney. It was the first Australian novel printed and published in mainland Australia and the first Australian novel written by a woman. It is a Gothic romance.

Miles Franklin Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin (14 October 187919 September 1954), known as Miles Franklin, was an Australian writer and feminist who is best known for her novel ''My Brilliant Career'', published by Blackwoods of Edinburgh in 1901. While s ...

('' My Brilliant Career'') and Jeannie Gunn ('' We of the Never Never'') wrote of lives of European pioneers in the Australian bush from a female perspective. Albert Facey wrote of the experiences of the Goldfields and of

Gallipoli The Gallipoli Peninsula (; ; ) is located in the southern part of East Thrace, the European part of Turkey, with the Aegean Sea to the west and the Dardanelles strait to the east. Gallipoli is the Italian form of the Greek name (), meaning ' ...

('' A Fortunate Life''). Ruth Park wrote of the sectarian divisions of life in impoverished 1940s inner city Sydney ('' The Harp in the South''). The experience of Australian

PoWs A prisoner of war (POW) is a person held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of war for a ...

in the

Pacific War The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia–Pacific War or the Pacific Theatre, was the Theater (warfare), theatre of World War II fought between the Empire of Japan and the Allies of World War II, Allies in East Asia, East and Southeast As ...

is recounted by Nevil Shute in '' A Town Like Alice'' and in the autobiography of Sir Edward Dunlop. Alan Moorehead was an Australian war correspondent and novelist who gained international acclaim. A number of notable classic works by international writers deal with Australian subjects, among them D. H. Lawrence's ''

Kangaroo Kangaroos are marsupials from the family Macropodidae (macropods, meaning "large foot"). In common use, the term is used to describe the largest species from this family, the red kangaroo, as well as the antilopine kangaroo, eastern gre ...

''. The journals of

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English Natural history#Before 1900, naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all speci ...

contain the famous naturalist's first impressions of Australia, gained on his tour aboard the Beagle that inspired his writing of

On the Origin of Species ''On the Origin of Species'' (or, more completely, ''On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life'')The book's full original title was ''On the Origin of Species by M ...

. ''The Wayward Tourist: Mark Twain's Adventures in Australia'' contains the acclaimed American humourist's musings on Australia from his 1895 lecture tour. In 2012, ''

The Age ''The Age'' is a daily newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, that has been published since 1854. Owned and published by Nine Entertainment, ''The Age'' primarily serves Victoria (Australia), Victoria, but copies also sell in Tasmania, the Austral ...

'' reported that Text Publishing was releasing an Australian classics series in 2012, to address a "neglect of Australian literature" by universities and "British dominated" publishing houses—citing out of print Miles Franklin award winners such as David Ireland's ''The Glass Canoe'' and Sumner Locke Elliott's ''Careful, He Might Hear You'' as key examples.

Children's literature

Ethel Turner's '' Seven Little Australians'', which relates the adventures of seven mischievous children in Sydney, has been in print since 1894, longer than any other Australian children's novel. '' The Getting of Wisdom'' (1910) by Henry Handel Richardson, about an unconventional schoolgirl in Melbourne, has enjoyed a similar success and been praised by

H. G. Wells Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946) was an English writer, prolific in many genres. He wrote more than fifty novels and dozens of short stories. His non-fiction output included works of social commentary, politics, hist ...

and Germaine Greer. Other perennial favourites of Australian children's literature include Dorothy Wall's '' Blinky Bill'', Ethel Pedley's '' Dot and the Kangaroo'', May Gibbs' '' Snugglepot and Cuddlepie'',

Norman Lindsay Norman Alfred William Lindsay (22 February 1879 – 21 November 1969) was an Australian artist, etcher, sculptor, writer, art critic, novelist, cartoonist and amateur boxing, boxer. One of the most prolific and popular Australian artists of hi ...

's ''

The Magic Pudding ''The'' is a grammatical article in English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The ...

'', Ruth Park's '' The Muddleheaded Wombat'' and Mem Fox's '' Possum Magic''. These classic works employ

anthropomorphism Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities. It is considered to be an innate tendency of human psychology. Personification is the related attribution of human form and characteristics t ...

to bring alive the creatures of the Australian bush, thus Bunyip Bluegum of ''The Magic Pudding'' is a koala who leaves his tree in search of adventure, while in ''Dot and the Kangaroo'' a little girl lost in the bush is befriended by a group of marsupials. May Gibbs crafted a story of protagonists modelled on the appearance of young

eucalyptus ''Eucalyptus'' () is a genus of more than 700 species of flowering plants in the family Myrtaceae. Most species of ''Eucalyptus'' are trees, often Mallee (habit), mallees, and a few are shrubs. Along with several other genera in the tribe Eucalyp ...

(gum tree) nuts and pitted these ''gumnut babies'', Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, against the antagonist Banksia men. Gibbs' influence has lasted through the generations – contemporary children's author Ursula Dubosarsky has cited ''Snugglepot and Cuddlepie'' as one of her favourite books. In the middle of the twentieth century, children's literature languished, with popular British authors dominating the Australian market. But in the 1960s

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

published several Australian children's authors, and Angus & Robertson appointed their first specialist children's editor. The best-known writers to emerge in this period were Hesba Brinsmead, Ivan Southall, Colin Thiele, Patricia Wrightson, Nan Chauncy, Joan Phipson and Eleanor Spence, their works primarily set in the Australian landscape. In 1971, Southall won the Carnegie Medal for '' Josh''. In 1986, Patricia Wrightson received the international

Hans Christian Andersen Award The Hans Christian Andersen Awards are two literary awards given by the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY), recognising one living author and one living illustrator for their "lasting contribution to children's literature". Th ...

. The Children's Book Council of Australia has presented annual awards for books of literary merit since 1946 and has other awards for outstanding contributions to Australian children's literature. Notable winners and shortlisted works have inspired several well-known Australian films from original novels, including the Silver Brumby series, a collection by Elyne Mitchell which recount the life and adventures of Thowra, a Snowy Mountains brumby stallion; '' Storm Boy'' (1964), by Colin Thiele, about a boy and his pelican and the relationships he has with his father, the pelican, and an outcast Aboriginal man called Fingerbone; the Sydney-based Victorian era time travel adventure '' Playing Beatie Bow'' (1980) by Ruth Park; and, for older children and mature readers, Melina Marchetta's 1993 novel about a Sydney high school girl '' Looking for Alibrandi''. Robin Klein's '' Came Back to Show You I Could Fly'' is a story about the beautiful relationship between an eleven-year-old boy and an older, drug-addicted girl. Jackie French, widely described as Australia's most popular children's author, has written about 170 books, including two CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award winners. One of them, the critically acclaimed '' Hitler's Daughter'' (1999), is a "what if?" story that explores mind-provoking issues about what would have happened if

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...

had had a daughter. French is also the author of the highly praised '' Diary of a Wombat'' (2003), which won awards such as the 2003 COOL Award and 2004 BILBY Award, among others. It was also named an honour book for the CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award for picture books. Paul Jennings is a prolific writer of contemporary Australian fiction for young people whose career began with collections of short stories such as '' Unreal!'' (1985) and '' Unbelievable!'' (1987); many of the stories were adapted as episodes of the award-winning television show '' Round the Twist''. The world's richest prize in children's literature has been received by two Australians, Sonya Hartnett, who won the 2008

Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award The Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award () is an international children's literary award established by the Swedish government in 2002 to honour the Swedish children's author Astrid Lindgren (1907–2002). The prize is five million SEK, making it ...

and Shaun Tan, who won in 2011. Hartnett has a long and distinguished career, publishing her first novel at 15. She is known for her dark and often controversial themes. She has won several awards, including the Kathleen Mitchell Award and the Victorian Premier's Award for ''Sleeping Dogs'', Guardian Children's Fiction Prize and the Aurealis Award, Best Young Adult Novel (Australian speculative fiction) for ''Thursday's Child'' and the CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Older Readers for ''Forest''. Tan won this for his career contribution to "children's and young adult literature in the broadest sense". Tan has been awarded various literary awards, including the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis in 2009 for ''Tales from Outer Suburbia'' and a New York Times Best Illustrated Children's Books award in 2007 for ''The Arrival''. Alongside his numerous literary awards, Tan's adaption of his book '' The Lost Thing'' also won him an Oscar for best animated short film. Other awards Tan has won include a World Fantasy Award for Best Artist, and a

Hugo Award The Hugo Award is an annual literary award for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year, given at the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) and chosen by its members. The award is administered by th ...

for Best Professional Artist.

Expatriate authors

A generation of leading contemporary international writers who left Australia for Britain and the United States in the 1960s have remained regular and passionate contributors of Australian themed literary works throughout their careers including:

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.Robert Hughes, Barry Humphries, Geoffrey Robertson and Germaine Greer. Several of these writers had links to the Sydney Push intellectual sub-culture in Sydney from the late 1940s to the early 1970s; and to '' Oz'', a satirical magazine originating in Sydney, and later produced in London (from 1967 to 1973). After a long media career, Clive James remained a leading humourist and author based in Britain whose memoir series was rich in reflections on Australian society (including his 2007 book '' Cultural Amnesia''). Robert Hughes has produced a number of historical works on Australia (including ''The Art of Australia'' (1966) and '' The Fatal Shore'' (1987)). Barry Humphries took his

dadaist Dada () or Dadaism was an anti-establishment art movement that developed in 1915 in the context of the Great War and the earlier anti-art movement. Early centers for dadaism included Zürich and Berlin. Within a few years, the movement had s ...

absurdist theatrical talents and pen to London in the 1960s, becoming an institution on British television and later attaining popularity in the USA. Humphries' outlandish Australian caricatures, including Dame Edna Everage, Barry McKenzie and Les Patterson have starred in books, stage and screen to great acclaim over five decades and his biographer Anne Pender described him in 2010 as the most significant comedian since Charles Chaplin. His own literary works include the Dame Edna biographies ''My Gorgeous Life'' (1989) and ''Handling Edna'' (2010) and the autobiography ''My Life As Me: A Memoir'' (2002). Geoffrey Robertson KC is a leading international human rights lawyer, academic, author and broadcaster whose books include ''The Justice Game'' (1998) and ''Crimes Against Humanity'' (1999). Leading feminist Germaine Greer, author of '' The Female Eunuch'', has spent much of her career in England but continues to study, critique, condemn and adore her homeland (recent work includes ''Whitefella Jump Up: The Shortest Way to Nationhood'', 2004).

Other contemporary works and authors

Martin Boyd (1893–1972) was a distinguished memoirist, novelist and poet, whose works included social comedies and the serious reflections of a pacifist faced with a time of war. Among his Langton series of novels—'' The Cardboard Crown'' (1952), '' A Difficult Young Man'' (1955), '' Outbreak of Love'' (1957)—earned high praise in Britain and the United States, though despite their Australian themes, were largely ignored in Australia. Patrick White (1912–1990) became the first Australian to be awarded the

Nobel Prize in Literature The Nobel Prize in Literature, here meaning ''for'' Literature (), is a Swedish literature prize that is awarded annually, since 1901, to an author from any country who has, in the words of the will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, "in ...

in 1973 "for an epic and psychological narrative art which has introduced a new continent into literature". White's

first novel A debut novel is the first novel a novelist publishes. Debut novels are often the author's first opportunity to make an impact on the publishing industry, and thus the success or failure of a debut novel can affect the ability of the author to p ...

, '' Happy Valley'' (1939) was inspired by the landscape and his work as a jackaroo on the land at

Adaminaby Adaminaby is a small town near the Snowy Mountains north-west of Cooma, New South Wales, Cooma, New South Wales, Australia, in the Snowy Monaro Regional Council. The historic town, of 301 people at the , is a trout fishing centre and winter spo ...

in the Snowy Mountains, but became an international success and won the Australian Literary Society's gold medal. Born to a conservative, wealthy Anglo-Australian family, he later wrote of conviction in left-wing causes and lived as a homosexual. Never destined for life on the land, he enrolled at Cambridge where he became a published poet. White developed as a novelist, but also had major theatrical success—including '' The Season at Sarsaparilla''. White followed '' The Tree of Man'' with ''

Voss Voss () is a Municipalities of Norway, municipality and a Districts of Norway, traditional district in Vestland Counties of Norway, county, Norway. The administrative center of the municipality is the village of Vossevangen. Other villages inclu ...

'', which became the first winner of 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 ...

. A subsequent novel, '' Riders in the Chariot'' also received a Miles Franklin award—but White later refused to permit his novels to be entered for literary prizes. He turned down a knighthood, and various literary awards—but in 1973 accepted the Nobel prize. David Marr wrote of biography of White in 1991.

J. M. Coetzee John Maxwell Coetzee Order of Australia, AC Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, FRSL Order of Mapungubwe, OMG (born 9 February 1940) is a South African and Australian novelist, essayist, linguist, and translator. The recipient of the 2003 ...

, who was born in South Africa and was resident there when awarded the

Nobel Prize in Literature The Nobel Prize in Literature, here meaning ''for'' Literature (), is a Swedish literature prize that is awarded annually, since 1901, to an author from any country who has, in the words of the will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, "in ...

in 2003, now lives in Adelaide, South Australia, and is an Australian citizen. Colleen McCullough's '' The Thorn Birds'', 1977, is Australia's highest selling novel and one of the biggest selling novels of all time with around 30 million copies sold by 2009.

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' ...

wrote ''

The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith ''The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith'' is a 1972 Booker Prize-nominated Australian novel by Thomas Keneally, and a 1978 Australian film of the same name directed by Fred Schepisi. The novel is based on the life of bushranger Jimmy Governor, the ...

'', 1972 and '' Schindler's Ark'', 1982. This latter work was the inspiration for the film '' Schindler's List''. Other notable Australian novels converted to celluloid include: Paul Brickhill's '' The Great Escape''; Pamela Lyndon Travers' ''

Mary Poppins Mary Poppins may refer to: * Mary Poppins (character), a nanny with magical powers * Mary Poppins (franchise), based on the fictional nanny ** Mary Poppins (book series), ''Mary Poppins'' (book series), the original 1934–1988 children's fanta ...

'';

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 ...

's '' The Shoes of the Fisherman'' and

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 ...

's '' The Power of One''. '' Careful, He Might Hear You'' by Sumner Locke Elliott won the Miles Franklin Award in 1963, and was the subject of a 1983 Australian film. Author David Ireland won the Miles Franklin Award three times, including for '' The Glass Canoe'' (1976). Peter Carey has also won the Miles Franklin Award three times ('' Jack Maggs'' 1998; '' Oscar and Lucinda'' 1989; and '' Bliss'' 1981). He has twice won the Booker Prize with 1988's '' Oscar and Lucinda'' and 2001's '' True History of the Kelly Gang''. DBC Pierre's '' Vernon God Little'' won the Booker Prize in 2003. Other notable writers to have emerged since the 1970s include

Kate Grenville Catherine Elizabeth Grenville (born 1950) is an Australian author. She has published fifteen books, including fiction, non-fiction, biography, and books about the writing process. In 2001, she won the Orange Prize for Fiction, Orange Prize for ...

,

David Malouf David George Joseph Malouf (; born 20 March 1934) is an Australian poet, novelist, short story writer, playwright and Libretto, librettist. Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2008, Malouf has lectured at both the University ...

, Helen Garner, Janette Turner Hospital, Marion Halligan, Susan Johnson, Christopher Koch, Alex Miller, Shirley Hazzard, Richard Flanagan, Gerald Murnane, Brenda Walker, Rod Jones and

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 ...

. James Clavell in '' The Asian Saga'' discusses an important feature of Australian literature: its portrayal of far

eastern culture Eastern culture, also known as Eastern civilization and historically as Oriental culture, is an umbrella term for the diverse cultural heritages of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, belief systems, political systems, Cultural ar ...

, from the admittedly even further east, but nevertheless western cultural viewpoint, as Nevil Shute did. Clavell was also a successful

screenwriter A screenwriter (also called scriptwriter, scribe, or scenarist) is a person who practices the craft of writing for visual mass media, known as screenwriting. These can include short films, feature-length films, television programs, television ...

and along with such writers as

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' ...

(see above), has expanded the topics of Australian literature far beyond that one country. Other novelists to use international themes are

David Malouf David George Joseph Malouf (; born 20 March 1934) is an Australian poet, novelist, short story writer, playwright and Libretto, librettist. Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2008, Malouf has lectured at both the University ...

, Beverley Farmer and Rod Jones. '' The Secret River'' (2005) is an historical fiction by

Kate Grenville Catherine Elizabeth Grenville (born 1950) is an Australian author. She has published fifteen books, including fiction, non-fiction, biography, and books about the writing process. In 2001, she won the Orange Prize for Fiction, Orange Prize for ...

imagining encounters between Aboriginal and colonial Australia which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. '' The Slap'' (2008) was an internationally successful novel by

Christos Tsiolkas Christos Tsiolkas is an Australian author, playwright, and screenwriter. He is especially known for '' The Slap'', which was both well-received critically and highly successful commercially. Several of his books have been adapted for film and t ...

which was adapted for television by

ABC1 ABC TV, formerly known as ABC1, is an Australian national public television network. It is owned and operated by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and is the flagship (broadcasting), flagship ABC Television (Australian TV network), A ...

in 2011, and was described in a review by Gerard Windsor as "something of an anatomy of the rising Australian middle class".

1991–1996: Grunge lit

Grunge lit (an abbreviation for "grunge literature") is an Australian

literary genre A literary genre is a category of literature. Genres may be determined by List of narrative techniques, literary technique, Tone (literature), tone, Media (communication), content, or length (especially for fiction). They generally move from mor ...

usually applied to

fiction Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying character (arts), individuals, events, or setting (narrative), places that are imagination, imaginary or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent ...

al or

semi-autobiographical An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life, providing a personal narrative that reflects on the author's experiences, memories, and insights. This genre allows individuals to share thei ...

writing concerned with dissatisfied and disenfranchised young people living in suburban or inner-city surroundings. It was typically written by "new, young authors"Leishman, Kirsty, 'Australian Grunge Literature and the Conflict between Literary Generations', ''Journal of Australian Studies'', 23.63 (1999), pp. 94–102 who examined "gritty, dirty, real existences", of lower-income young people, whose lives revolve around a nihilistic pursuit of casual sex,

recreational drug use Recreational drug use is the use of one or more psychoactive drugs to induce an altered state of consciousness, either for pleasure or for some other casual purpose or pastime. When a psychoactive drug enters the user's body, it induces an Sub ...

and

alcohol Alcohol may refer to: Common uses * Alcohol (chemistry), a class of compounds * Ethanol, one of several alcohols, commonly known as alcohol in everyday life ** Alcohol (drug), intoxicant found in alcoholic beverages ** Alcoholic beverage, an alco ...

, which are used to escape

boredom In conventional usage, boredom, , or tedium is an emotion characterized by Interest (emotion), uninterest in one's surrounding, often caused by a lack of distractions or occupations. Although, "There is no universally accepted definition of bo ...

or a general flightiness. Romantic love is seldom, as instant gratification has become the norm. It has been described as both a sub-set of dirty realism and an offshoot of

Generation X Generation X (often shortened to Gen X) is the Demography, demographic Cohort (statistics), cohort following the Baby Boomers and preceding Millennials. Researchers and popular media often use the mid-1960s as its starting birth years and the ...

literature.Vernay, Jean-François,
Grunge Fiction
, ''The Literary Encyclopedia'', 6 November 2008, accessed 9 September 2009 The term "grunge" is from the 1990s-era music genre of grunge. The genre was first coined in 1995 following the success of Andrew McGahan's first novel ''Praise'' which had been released in 1991 and became popular with sub-30-year-old readers, a previously under-investigated

demographic Demography () is the statistics, statistical study of human populations: their size, composition (e.g., ethnic group, age), and how they change through the interplay of fertility (births), mortality (deaths), and migration. Demographic analy ...

. Other authors considered to be "grunge lit" include Linda Jaivin, Fiona McGregor and Justine Ettler. Since its invention, the term "grunge lit" has been retrospectively applied to novels written as early as 1977, namely Helen Garner's '' Monkey Grip''. Grunge lit is often raw, explicit, and vulgar, even to the point of Ettler's '' The River Ophelia'' (1995) being called pornographic. The term "grunge lit" and its use to categorize and market this diverse group of writers and authorial styles has been the subject of debate and criticism. Linda Jaivin disagreed with putting all these authors in one category, Christios Tsiolkas called the term a "media creation", and Murray Waldren denied grunge lit even was a new genre; he said the works actually are a type of the pre-existing dirty realism genre.

1998–2010s: Post-grunge lit

Post-grunge lit is a genre of Australian fiction from the late 1990s, 2000s and 2010s. It is called "post-grunge lit" to denote that this genre appeared after the 1990s Australian literary genre known as grunge lit. Michael Robert Christie's 2009 PhD dissertation, "Unbecoming-of-Age: Australian Grunge Fiction, the Bildungsroman and the Long Labor Decade" states that there is a genre called "post Grunge it which follows the grunge lit period. Christie names three examples of Australian "post-grunge lit": Elliot Perlman's '' Three Dollars'' (1998), Andrew McCann's '' Subtopia'' (2005) and Anthony Macris' ''Capital''. Christie's dissertation interprets and explains these three post-grunge lit works "as responses to the embedding of

Neoliberalism Neoliberalism is a political and economic ideology that advocates for free-market capitalism, which became dominant in policy-making from the late 20th century onward. The term has multiple, competing definitions, and is most often used pe ...

in Australian and global political culture". Kalinda Ashton (born 1978) has been called a post-grunge writer, in part due to influences from grunge lit author

Christos Tsiolkas Christos Tsiolkas is an Australian author, playwright, and screenwriter. He is especially known for '' The Slap'', which was both well-received critically and highly successful commercially. Several of his books have been adapted for film and t ...

. Ashton is the author of the novel '' The Danger Game''. Samantha Dagg's 2017 thesis on grunge lit and post-grunge lit states that Luke Carman is a post-grunge writer. Carman's first work, a collection of interlinked semi-autobiographical short stories, explores the authentic experiences of working-class Australians in the suburbs, including issues such as drug addiction and a sense of disillusionment.

Australian writing in languages other than English

Australia has migrant groups from many countries, and members of those communities (not always of the first generation) have produced Australian writing in a variety of languages. These include Italian, Greek,

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

, Chinese, Vietnamese, Lao, Filipino, Latvian, Ukrainian, Polish, Russian, Serbian,

Yiddish Yiddish, historically Judeo-German, is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated in 9th-century Central Europe, and provided the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with ...

and Irish. Comparatively little attention has been devoted to such writing by mainstream critics. It has been argued that, in relation to the national literary landscape, such literary communities have a quite separate existence, with their own poetry festivals, literary competitions, magazine and newspaper reviews and features, and even local publishers. Some writers, like the Greek Australian Dimitris Tsaloumas, have published bilingually. There are now signs that such writing is attracting more academic interest. Some older works in languages other than English have been translated and received critical and historical attention long after their first publication; for example, the first Chinese-language novel to be published in Australia (and possibly the West), '' The Poison of Polygamy'' (1909–10) by Wong Shee Ping, was published in English for the first time in 2019, in a bilingual parallel edition.

Histories

History has been an important discipline in the development of Australian writing. Watkin Tench (1758–1833) - a British officer who arrived with the

First Fleet The First Fleet were eleven British ships which transported a group of settlers to mainland Australia, marking the beginning of the History of Australia (1788–1850), European colonisation of Australia. It consisted of two Royal Navy vessel ...

in 1788 - later published two books on the subject of the foundations of New South Wales: ''Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay'' and ''Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson''. Written with a spirit of humanity his accounts are considered by writers including Robert Hughes and

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' ...

to be essential reading for the early history of Australia/ Charles Bean was the official war historian of the First World War and was influential in establishing the importance of ANZAC in Australian history and mythology, with such prose as "Anzac stood, and still stands, for reckless valor in a good cause, for enterprise, resourcefulness, fidelity, comradeship and endurance, that will never own defeat". (see works including ''The Story of ANZAC: From the Outbreak of War to the End of the First Phase of the Gallipoli Campaign 4 May 1915'', 1921). '' Australia in the War of 1939–1945'' is a 22-volume official history dedicated to Australia's Second World War efforts. the series was published by the Australian War Memorial between 1952 and 1977. The main editor was Gavin Long. A significant milestone was the

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human species; as well as the ...

Manning Clark's six-volume ''History of Australia'', which is regarded by some as the definitive account of the nation. Clark had a talent for narrative prose and the work (published between 1969 and 1987) remains a popular and influential work. Clark's one time student

Geoffrey Blainey Geoffrey Norman Blainey, (born 11 March 1930) is an Australian historian, academic, best selling author and commentator. Blainey is noted for his authoritative texts on the economic and social history of Australia, including ''The Tyranny of ...

stands as another to have deeply influenced Australian historiography. His important works include '' The Tyranny of Distance'' (1966) and '' Triumph of the Nomads: A History of Ancient Australia'' (1975). Robert Hughes' much-debated history '' The Fatal Shore: The epic of Australia's founding'' (1987) is a popular and influential work on early Australian history. Marcia Langton is one of the principal contemporary

Indigenous Australian Indigenous Australians are people with familial heritage from, or recognised membership of, the various ethnic groups living within the territory of contemporary Australia prior to History of Australia (1788–1850), British colonisation. The ...

academics and her 2008 collaboration with Rachel Perkins chronicles Australian history from an Indigenous perspective: '' First Australians. An Illustrated History''.

Writing and identity

A complicated, multi-faceted relationship to Australia is displayed in much Australian writing, often through writing about landscape. Barbara Baynton's short stories from the late 19th century/early 20th century convey people living in the bush, a landscape that is alive but also threatening and alienating. Kenneth Cook's ''Wake in Fright'' (1961) portrayed the outback as a nightmare with a blazing sun, from which there is no escape. Colin Thiele's novels reflected the life and times of rural and regional Australians in the 20th century, showing aspects of Australian life unknown to many city dwellers. In Australian literature, the term '' mateship'' has often been employed to denote an intensely loyal relationship of shared experience, mutual respect and unconditional assistance existing between friends (''mates'') in Australia. This relationship of (often male) loyalty has remained a central subject of Australian literature from colonial times to the present day. In 1847, Alexander Harris wrote of habits of mutual helpfulness between mates arising in the "otherwise solitary bush" in which men would often "stand by one another through thick and thin; in fact it is a universal feeling that a man ought to be able to trust his own mate in anything". Henry Lawson, a son of the Goldfields wrote extensively of an egalitarian mateship, in such works as ''A Sketch of Mateship'' and ''Shearers'', in which he wrote: :They tramp in mateship side by side - :The Protestant and Roman :They call no biped lord or sir :And touch their hat to no man. What it means to be Australian is another issue that Australian literature explores.

Miles Franklin Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin (14 October 187919 September 1954), known as Miles Franklin, was an Australian writer and feminist who is best known for her novel ''My Brilliant Career'', published by Blackwoods of Edinburgh in 1901. While s ...

struggled to find a place for herself as a female writer in Australia, fictionalising this experience in '' My Brilliant Career'' (1901). Marie Bjelke Petersen's popular romance novels, published between 1917 and 1937, offered a fresh upbeat interpretation of the Australian bush. The central character in Patrick White's '' The Twyborn Affair'' tries to conform to expectations of pre–World War II Australian masculinity but cannot, and instead, post-war, tries out another identity—and gender—overseas. Peter Carey has toyed with the idea of a national Australian identity as a series of 'beautiful lies', and this is a recurrent theme in his novels. Andrew McGahan's ''Praise'' (1992),

Christos Tsiolkas Christos Tsiolkas is an Australian author, playwright, and screenwriter. He is especially known for '' The Slap'', which was both well-received critically and highly successful commercially. Several of his books have been adapted for film and t ...

's '' Loaded'' (1995), Justine Ettler's ''The River Ophelia'' (1995) and Brendan Cowell's ''How It Feels'' (2010) introduced a grunge lit, a type of 'gritty realism' take on questions of Australian identity in the 1990s, though an important precursor to such work came some years earlier with Helen Garner's '' Monkey Grip'' (1977), about a single mother living on and off with a male heroin addict in Melbourne share housing. Australian literature has had several scandals surrounding the identity of writers. In the 1930s, a misunderstanding with a printer caused Maude Hepplestone's bush poetry collection "Songs of the Kookaburra" to be mistakenly lauded internationally as a modernist masterpiece. The 1944 Ern Malley affair led to an obscenity trial and is often blamed for the lack of modernist poetry in Australia. To mark the 60th anniversary of the Ern Malley affair, another Australian writer, Leon Carmen, set out to make a point about the prejudice of Australian publishers against white Australians. Unable to find publication as a white Australian he was an instant success using the false Aboriginal identity of "Wanda Koolmatrie" with ''My Own Sweet Time''. In the 1980s Streten Bozik also managed to become published by assuming the Aboriginal identity of B. Wongar. In the 1990s,

Helen Darville Helen Dale (born Helen Darville; 1972) is an Australian writer and lawyer. She is best known for writing '' The Hand that Signed the Paper'', a novel about a Ukrainian family who collaborated with the Nazis in the Holocaust, under the pseudony ...

used the pen-name "Helen Demidenko" and won major literary prizes for her ''Hand that Signed the Paper'' before being discovered, sparking a controversy over the content of her novel, a fictionalised and highly tendentious account of the Nazi occupation of Ukraine. Mudrooroo—previously known as Colin Johnson—was acclaimed as an Aboriginal writer until his Aboriginality came under question (his mother was Irish/English and his father was Irish/African-American, however he has strong connections with Aboriginal tribes); he now avoids adopting a specific ethnic identity and his works deconstruct such notions.

Poetry

Poetry Poetry (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addition to, or in ...

played an important part in early Australian literature. The first poet to be published in Australia was Michael Massey Robinson (1744–1826), convict and public servant, whose

ode An ode (from ) is a type of lyric poetry, with its origins in Ancient Greece. Odes are elaborately structured poems praising or glorifying an event or individual, describing nature intellectually as well as emotionally. A classic ode is structu ...

s appeared in ''The Sydney Gazette''. The first book of verse by a native-born Australian poet, ''Australasia'', was published by explorer and author William Charles Wentworth in 1823, espousing his ideals of Australian identity. Charles Harpur and Henry Kendall were the first poets of any consequence. Henry Lawson, son of a Norwegian sailor born in 1867, was widely recognised as Australia's poet of the people and, in 1922, became the first Australian writer to be honoured with a state funeral. Two poets who are amongst the great Australian poets are Christopher Brennan and Adam Lindsay Gordon; Gordon was once referred to as the "

national poet A national poet or national bard is a poet held by tradition and popular acclaim to represent the identity, beliefs and principles of a particular national culture. The national poet as culture hero is a long-standing symbol, to be distinguished ...

of Australia" and is the only Australian with a monument in Poets' Corner of

Westminster Abbey Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an Anglican church in the City of Westminster, London, England. Since 1066, it has been the location of the coronations of 40 English and British m ...

in England. Both Gordon's and Brennan's (but particularly Brennan's) works conformed to traditional styles of poetry, with many classical allusions, and therefore fell within the domain of high culture. However, at the same time Australia had a competing, vibrant tradition of

folk song Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be ca ...

s and

ballad A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and song of Great Britain and Ireland from the Late Middle Ages until the 19th century. They were widely used across Eur ...

s. Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson were two of the chief exponents of these popular ballads, and 'Banjo' himself was responsible for creating what is probably the most famous Australian verse, " Waltzing Matilda". At one point, Lawson and Paterson contributed a series of verses to '' The Bulletin'' magazine in which they engaged in a literary debate about the nature of life in Australia. Lawson said Paterson was a romantic and Paterson said Lawson was full of doom and gloom. Lawson is widely regarded as one of Australia's greatest writers of short stories, while Paterson's poems " The Man From Snowy River" and " Clancy of the Overflow" remain amongst the most popular Australian bush poems. Romanticised views of the outback and the rugged characters that inhabited it played an important part in shaping the Australian nation's psyche, just as the

cowboy A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the ''vaquero'' ...

s of the American Old West and the

gaucho A gaucho () or gaúcho () is a skilled horseman, reputed to be brave and unruly. The figure of the gaucho is a folk symbol of Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil, the southern part of Bolivia, and the south of Chilean Patago ...

s of the Argentine

pampa The Pampas (; from Quechuan languages, Quechua 'plain'), also known as the Pampas Plain, are fertile South American low grasslands that cover more than and include the Argentina, Argentine Provinces of Argentina, provinces of Buenos Aires Pro ...

became part of the self-image of those nations. Banjo Patterson

Other poets who reflected a sense of Australian identity include C J Dennis and Dorothea McKellar. Dennis wrote in the Australian vernacular (" The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke"), while McKellar wrote the iconic patriotic poem " My Country". Prominent Australian poets of the 20th century include Dame Mary Gilmore, A. D. Hope, Judith Wright, Gwen Harwood, Kenneth Slessor, Les Murray, Bruce Dawe and more recently Robert Gray, John Forbes, John Tranter, John Kinsella, Richard James Allen, and Judith Beveridge. Dorothea Mackellar

Contemporary Australian poetry is mostly published by small, independent book publishers. However, other kinds of publication, including new media and online journals, spoken word and live events, and public poetry projects are gaining an increasingly vibrant and popular presence. 1992–1999 saw poetry and art collaborations in Sydney and Newcastle buses and ferries, including Artransit from Meuse Press. Some of the more interesting and innovative contributions to Australian poetry have emerged from artist-run galleries in recent years, such as Textbase which had its beginnings as part of the 1st Floor gallery in Fitzroy. In addition, Red Room Company is a major exponent of innovative projects. Bankstown Poetry Slam has become a notable venue for spoken-word poetry and for community intersection with poetry as an art form to be shared. With its roots in Western Sydney it has a strong following from first and second generation Australians, often giving a platform to voices that are more marginalised in mainstream Australian society. Lesmurray

The Australian Poetry Library was an online resource that contained a wide range of Australian poetry as well as critical and contextual material relating to it, such as interviews, photographs and audio/visual recordings. Begun in 2004 by leading Australian poet John Tranter, it was a joint initiative of the

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD) is a public university, public research university in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in both Australia and Oceania. One of Australia's six sandstone universities, it was one of the ...

and the Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) with funding by the Australian Research Council. By 2018 it contained over 42,000 poems, from more than 170 Australian poets. , the Australian Poetry Library is "currently unavailable".

Plays

European traditions came to Australia with the

First Fleet The First Fleet were eleven British ships which transported a group of settlers to mainland Australia, marking the beginning of the History of Australia (1788–1850), European colonisation of Australia. It consisted of two Royal Navy vessel ...

in 1788, with the first production being performed in 1789 by convicts : ''

The Recruiting Officer ''The Recruiting Officer'' is a 1706 play by the Irish writer George Farquhar, which follows the social and sexual exploits of two English Army officers, the womanising Plume and the cowardly Brazen, in the town of Shrewsbury (the town where ...

'' by George Farquhar.The Recruiting Officer & Our Country's Good – Stantonbury Campus Theatre Company, 2000
/ref> Two centuries later, the extraordinary circumstances of the foundations of Australian theatre were recounted in '' Our Country's Good'' by Timberlake Wertenbaker: the participants were prisoners watched by sadistic guards and the leading lady was under threat of the death penalty. The play is based on

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' ...

's novel '' The Playmaker''. After Australian Federation in 1901, plays evidenced a new sense of national identity. ''On Our Selection'' (1912) by Steele Rudd, told of the adventures of a pioneer farming family and became immensely popular. In 1955, '' Summer of the Seventeenth Doll'' by Ray Lawler portrayed resolutely Australian characters and went on to international acclaim. A new wave of Australian theatre debuted in the 1970s with the works of writers including David Williamson, Barry Oakley and Jack Hibberd. The Belvoir St Theatre presented works by Nick Enright and David Williamson. Williamson is Australia's best known playwright, with major works including: '' The Club, Emerald City'', and '' Brilliant Lies''. In ''The One Day of the Year'', Alan Seymour studied the paradoxical nature of the ANZAC Day commemoration by Australians of the defeat of the Battle of Gallipoli. ''Ngapartji Ngapartji'', by Scott Rankin and Trevor Jamieson, recounts the story of the effects on the Pitjantjatjara people of nuclear testing in the Western Desert during the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

. It is an example of the contemporary fusion of traditions of drama in Australia with Pitjantjatjara actors being supported by a multicultural cast of Greek, Afghan, Japanese and New Zealand heritage. Eminent contemporary Australian playwrights include David Williamson, Alan Seymour, Stephen Sewell, the late Nick Enright and Justin Fleming. The Australian government supports a website (australianplays.or
The Home of Australian Playscripts , AustralianPlays.org
that aims to combine playwright biographies and script information. Scripts are also available there.

Science fiction and fantasy

Australia, unlike Europe, does not have a long history in the genre of science fiction. Nevil Shute's '' On the Beach'', published in 1957, and filmed in 1959, was perhaps the first notable international success. Though not born in Australia, Shute spent his latter years there, and the book was set in Australia. It might have been worse had the imports of American pulp magazines not been restricted during WWII, forcing local writers into the field. Various compilation magazines began appearing in the 1960s and the field has continued to expand into some significance. Today Australia has a thriving SF/Fantasy genre with names recognised around the world. In 2013 a trilogy by Sydney-born Ben Peek was sold at auction to a UK publisher for a six-figure deal .

Crime

The

crime fiction Crime fiction, detective story, murder mystery, crime novel, mystery novel, and police novel are terms used to describe narratives or fiction that centre on criminal acts and especially on the investigation, either by an amateur or a professiona ...

genre is currently thriving in Australia, most notably through books written by

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 ...

, Shane Maloney, Peter Temple, Barry Maitland, Arthur Upfield and

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 ...

, among others. High-profile, highly publicised court cases and murders have seen a significant amount of non-fiction crime literature, perhaps the most recognisable writer in this field being Helen Garner. Garner's published accounts of three court cases: '' The First Stone'', about a sexual harassment scandal at the University of Melbourne, '' Joe Cinque's Consolation'', about a young man murdered by his girlfriend in Canberra, and '' This House of Grief'', about Victorian child-killer Robert Farquharson. Each of Garner's works incorporates the style reminiscent of a fictional narrative novel, a stylistic device known as the

non-fiction novel The non-fiction novel is a literary genre that, broadly speaking, depicts non-fictional elements, such as real historical figures and actual events, woven together with fictitious conversations and uses the storytelling techniques of fiction. The ...

. Chloe Hooper published '' The Tall Man: Death and Life on Palm Island'' in 2008 as a response to the death of an Aboriginal man, Cameron Doomadgee, in police custody in Palm Island, Queensland.

Literary journals

The first periodical that could be called a literary journal in Australia was ''The Australian Magazine'' (June 1821 - May 1822).Lurline Stuart (1979), ''Nineteenth century Australian periodicals: an annotated bibliography'', Sydney, Hale & Iremonger, p.2 & 35. It featured poetry, a two-part story and articles on theology and general topics. Most of the others that followed in the 19th century were based in either Sydney or Melbourne. Few lasted long due to difficulties that included a lack of capital, the small local market and competition from literary journals from Britain. Most recent Australian literary journals have originated from universities, and specifically English or Communications departments. They include: * '' Meanjin'' * '' Overland'' * ''

HEAT In thermodynamics, heat is energy in transfer between a thermodynamic system and its surroundings by such mechanisms as thermal conduction, electromagnetic radiation, and friction, which are microscopic in nature, involving sub-atomic, ato ...

'' * '' Southerly'' * '' Westerly'' Other journals include: * '' Quadrant'' * '' Australian Book Review'' * ''

Island An island or isle is a piece of land, distinct from a continent, completely surrounded by water. There are continental islands, which were formed by being split from a continent by plate tectonics, and oceanic islands, which have never been ...

'' * '' Voiceworks'' * '' Wet Ink'' (now closed) * '' The Lifted Brow'' * '' Red Leaves / 紅葉'' * '' Kill Your Darlings'' A number of newspapers also carry literary review supplements: * '' Australian Literary Review''

Awards

Current literary awards in Australia include: * Anne Elder Award * The Australian/Vogel Literary Award * Children's Book Council of Australia * Ditmar Award Science Fiction (includes Fantasy & Horror) * Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry * Mary Gilmore Prize for a first book of poetry *

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 ...

* New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards * Patrick White Award * Peter Blazey Fellowship * Prime Minister's Literary Awards *

Queensland Premier's Literary Awards The Queensland Premier's Literary Awards were an Australian suite of literary awards inaugurated in 1999 and disestablished in 2012. It was one of the most generous suites of literary awards within Australia, with $225,000 in prize money across ...

* Stella Prize * Victorian Premier's Literary Award * Western Australian Premier's Book Awards Australian authors are also eligible for a number of other literary awards, such as the: * Booker Prize * Commonwealth Writers' Prize *

Women's Prize for Fiction The Women's Prize for Fiction (previously with sponsor names Orange Prize for Fiction (1996–2006 and 2009–2012), Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction (2007–08) and Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction (2014–2017) is one of the United Kingdom's ...

References

External links

* Th
Library of Australiana
page a
Project Gutenberg of Australia

Bibliography of Australian Literature to 1954
a
Freeread

"AustLit: The Australian Literature Resource" (2000-)

List of Australian Writers in English
{{Authority control English-language literature

Overview

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers and themes

Early and classic works

Children's literature

Expatriate authors

Other contemporary works and authors

1991–1996: Grunge lit

1998–2010s: Post-grunge lit

Australian writing in languages other than English

Histories

Writing and identity

Poetry

Plays

Science fiction and fantasy

Crime

Literary journals

Awards

Further reading

Books

Articles

See also

References

External links