2023 in Australian literature
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This is a list of historical events and publications of Australian literature during 2023.
- July: Publisher Hachette Australia withdraws from publication the book titled Special Operations Group by Christophe Glasl after Victoria Police expressed concerns about the accuracy of the book[1]
- December: Yumna Kassab is announced as inaugural Parramatta Laureate of Literature for 2024[2]
Major publications
Literary fiction
- Hossein Asgari – Only Sound Remains[3]
- Tony Birch – Women & Children
- Katherine Brabon – Body Friend
- Jen Craig – Wall[4]
- Lauren Aimee Curtis – Strangers in the Port[5]
- Trent Dalton – Lola in the Mirror[6]
- André Dao – Anam
- Gregory Day – The Bell of the World[7]
- Ali Cobby Eckermann – She Is the Earth (verse novel)[8]
- Lexi Freiman – The Book of Ayn
- Madeleine Gray – Green Dot
- Kate Grenville – Restless Dolly Maunder
- John Kinsella – Cellnight: A verse novel[9]
- Melissa Lucashenko – Edenglassie
- Kate Morton – Homecoming[10]
- Genevieve Novak – Crushing
- Emily O'Grady – Feast
- Angela O'Keeffe – The Sitter
- Mirandi Riwoe – Sunbirds[11]
- Sanya Rushdi – Hospital[12]
- Kate Scott – Compulsion
- Tracy Sorensen – The Vitals[13]
- Lucy Treloar – Days of Innocence and Wonder[14]
- Christos Tsiolkas – The In-Between[15]
- Pip Williams – The Bookbinder of Jericho
- Charlotte Wood – Stone Yard Devotional
- Alexis Wright – Praiseworthy
Children's and Young Adult fiction
- Melissa Kang & Yumi Stynes – Welcome to Sex, illustrated by Jenny Latham[16]
- Will Kostakis – We Could Be Something[17]
- Alice Pung – Millie Mak the Maker, illustrated by Sher Rill Ng[18]
- Lili Wilkinson – A Hunger of Thorns[19]
- Dianne Wolfer – Scout and the Rescue Dogs[20]
Short story collections
- J. M. Coetzee – The Pole and Other Stories
- Laura Jean McKay – Gunflower[21]
- Graeme Simsion – Creative Differences: And Other Stories[22]
Crime and mystery
- Tim Ayliffe – Killer Traitor Spy[23]
- Ashley Kalagian Blunt – Dark Mode[24]
- Shelley Burr – Ripper[25]
- Candice Fox – Fire With Fire[26]
- Megan Goldin – Dark Corners[27]
- Chris Hammer – The Seven[28]
- Amanda Hampson – The Tea Ladies[29]
- Sally Hepworth – Darling Girls
- Fiona McIntosh – Dead Tide[30]
- Benjamin Stevenson – Everyone on this train is a suspect[31]
- Chris Womersley – Ordinary Gods and Monsters[32]
Science fiction and fantasy
Poetry
- Stuart Barnes – Like to the Lark[33]
- Amy Crutchfield – The Cyprian
- Dan Hogan – Secret Third Thing[34]
- John Kinsella – Harsh Hakea: Collected Poems Volume Two (2005–2014)[35]
- David McCooey – The Book of Falling[36]
- Jennifer Maiden – Golden Bridge: New Poems[37]
- Pi O – The Tour[38]
- Tais Rose Wae – Riverbed Sky Songs[39]
- Grace Yee – Chinese Fish
Non-Fiction
- Katie Ariel – The Swift Dark Tide
- Chanel Contos – Consent Laid Bare[40]
- Robyn Davidson – Unfinished Woman[41]
- Marele Day – Reckless[42]
- Martin Flanagan – The Empty Honour Board[43]
- Clementine Ford – I Don't[44]
- Anna Funder – Wifedom: Mrs Orwell's Invisible Life[45]
- Michael Gawenda – My Life as a Jew[46]
- Stan Grant – The Queen is Dead: The Time has Come for a Reckoning[47]
- Susan Johnson – Aphrodite's Breath[48]
- Christine Kenneally – Ghosts of the Orphanage[49]
- Sarah Krasnostein – On Peter Carey[50]
- David Marr – Killing for Country: A Family Story[51]
- Ross McMullin – Life So Full of Promise[52]
- Alex Miller – A Kind of Confession: The Writer's Private World[18]
- Matt Preston – Big Mouth[53]
- Alecia Simmonds – Courting: An Intimate History of Love and the Law[54]
- Margaret Simons – Tanya Plibersek: On Her Own Terms[55]
- Christine Wallace – Political Lives: Australian Prime Ministers and Their Biographers[56]
Drama
- Nicholas Brown – Sex Magick[57]
- Joanna Murray-Smith – Julia[58]
Awards and honours
Note: these awards were presented in the year in question.
Lifetime achievement
| Award | Author |
|---|---|
| Patrick White Award[59] | Alex Skovron |
Literary
| Award | Author | Title | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|
| ALS Gold Medal[60] | Debra Dank | We Come With This Place | Echo Publishing |
| Colin Roderick Award[61] | Sarah Holland-Batt | The Jaguar | University of Queensland Press |
| Indie Book Awards Book of the Year[62] | Craig Silvey | Runt | Allen & Unwin |
| New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards[63] | Debra Dank | We Come With This Place | Echo Publishing |
| Stella Prize[64] | Sarah Holland-Batt | The Jaguar | University of Queensland Press |
| Victorian Premier's Literary Awards[65][66] | Jessica Au | Cold Enough for Snow | Giramondo Publishing |
Fiction
Children and Young Adult
| Award | Category | Author | Title | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ARA Historical Novel Prize[69] | Children and Young Adult | Amelia Mellor | The Bookseller’s Apprentice | Affirm Press |
| Children's Book of the Year Award[77] | Older Readers | Tom Taylor | Neverlanders | Penguin Random House |
| Younger Readers | Craig Silvey | Runt | Allen & Unwin | |
| Picture Book | Zeno Sworder | My Strange Shrinking Parents | Thames & Hudson | |
| Early Childhood | Vikki Conley, illus. Max Hamilton | Where the Lyrebird Lives | Windy Hollow | |
| Eve Pownall Award for Information Books | Jess McGeachin | DEEP: Delve into hidden words | Welbeck Publishing | |
| Indie Book Awards Book of the Year[62] | Children's | Craig Silvey | Runt | Allen & Unwin |
| Young Adult | Holden Shepherd | The Brink | Text Publishing | |
| Prime Minister's Literary Awards[73] | Children's | Jasmine Seymour | Open Your Heart to Country | Magabala Books |
| Young Adult | Sarah Winifred Searle | The Greatest Thing | Allen & Unwin | |
| New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards[74] | Children's | Corey Tutt and Blak Douglas | The First Scientists | Hardie Grant |
| Young People's | Lystra Rose | The Upwelling | Hachette | |
| Queensland Literary Awards[75] | Children's | Katrina Nannestad | Waiting for the Storks | ABC Books |
| Young Adult | Biffy James | Completely Normal (and Other Lies) | Hardie Grant | |
| Victorian Premier's Literary Awards[65][66] | Young Adult Fiction | Kate Murray | We Who Hunt the Hollow | Hardie Grant |
Crime and Mystery
National
| Award | Category | Author | Title | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Davitt Award[78] | Novel | Tracey Lien | All That’s Left Unsaid | HQ Fiction |
| Young adult novel | Fleur Ferris | Seven Days | Puffin | |
| Children's novel | Charlie Archbold | The Sugarcane Kids and the Red-Bottomed Boat | Text Publishing | |
| Non-fiction | Megan Norris | Out of the Ashes | Simon and Schuster Australia | |
| Debut | Hayley Scrivenor | Dirt Town | Pan Macmillan | |
| Readers' choice | Vikki Petraitis | The Unbelieved | Allen & Unwin | |
| Ned Kelly Award[79] | Novel | Jane Harper | Exiles | Pan Macmillan |
| First novel | Shelley Burr | Wake | Hachette Australia | |
| True crime | Sandi Logan | Betrayed | Hachette Australia | |
Poetry
| Award | Author | Title | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|
| Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature[67] | Not awarded | ||
| Anne Elder Award[80](joint winners) | Harry Reid | Leave Me Alone | Cordite |
| Theodore Ell | Beginning In Sight | RWP | |
| Mary Gilmore Award[81] | Harry Reid | Leave Me Alone | Cordite |
| Prime Minister's Literary Awards[73] | Gavin Yuan Gao | At the Altar of Touch | UQP |
| New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards[74] | Kim Cheng Boey | The Singer and Other Poems | Cordite |
| Judith Wright Calanthe Award for a Poetry Collection[75] | Lionel Fogarty | Harvest Lingo | Giramondo |
| Victorian Premier's Literary Awards[65] | Gavin Yuan Gao | At the Altar of Touch | UQP |
Drama
| Award | Category | Author | Title | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards[74] | Script | Del Kathryn Barton and Huna Amweero | Blaze | Causeway Films |
| Play | Dylan Van Den Berg | Whitefella Yella Tree | Griffin Theatre Company & Currency Press | |
| Victorian Premier's Literary Awards[65][66] | John Harvey | The Return | Malthouse Theatre | |
| Patrick White Playwrights' Award[82] | Award | Wendy Mocke | Realish | Melbourne Theatre Company |
| Fellowship | Wesley Enoch |
Non-Fiction
| Award | Category | Author | Title | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature[67] | Non-Fiction | Not awarded | ||
| The Age Book of the Year[68] | Non-Fiction | Kim Mahood | Wandering With Intent | Scribe |
| Indie Book Awards Book of the Year[62] | Non-Fiction | Richard Fidler | The Book of Roads And Kingdoms | ABC Books |
| Illustrated Non-Fiction | Damien Coulthard and Rebecca Sullivan | First Nations Food Companion | Murdoch Books | |
| National Biography Award[83] | Biography | Ann-Marie Priest | My Tongue Is My Own: A Life of Gwen Harwood | La Trobe University Press / Black Inc. |
| Prime Minister's Literary Awards[73] | Non-Fiction | Sam Vincent | My Father and Other Animals | Black Inc. |
| New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards[74] | Non-Fiction | Debra Dank | We Come With This Place | Echo Publishing |
| New South Wales Premier's History Awards[84] | Australian History | Alan Atkinson | Elizabeth and John: The Macarthurs of Elizabeth Farm | NewSouth |
| Community and Regional History | Ian Hodges | He Belonged to Wagga: The Great War, the AIF and returned soldiers in an Australian country town | ASP | |
| General History | Michael Laffan | Under Empire: Muslim lives and loyalties across the Indian Ocean world, 1775–1945 | Columbia University | |
| Queensland Literary Awards[75] | Non-Fiction | Debra Dank | We Come With This Place | Echo Publishing |
| Victorian Premier's Literary Awards[65][66] | Non-Fiction | Eda Gunaydin | Root & Branch: Essays on inheritance | NewSouth |
