Robbie Arnott

Arnott's early writing appeared in literary publications Island Magazine, Kill Your Darlings and The Lifted Brow. In 2014, Arnott was awarded the Scribe Nonfiction Prize for Young Writers, and in 2015 won the Tasmanian Young Writer's Fellowship.^[1]

Flames, Arnott's first novel, was released by Text Publishing in Australia in 2018. The novel was longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award in 2019^[2] and was nominated for the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for fiction. Following the release of Flames, Arnott was named a Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Novelist, a title awarded to select Australian authors under the age of 35 at the time their work was published.^[3] Flames has been included as a text in Australian VCE (Victorian) school curriculum.^[4]

The Rain Heron, Arnott's second novel, was released in 2020, and won The Age Book of the Year Award as well as being shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award.^[5][6] Critics noted the novel continued Arnott's style of "risk-taking" and "daring" literary fiction, with a positive reception to its environmental messages.^[7][8]

The third novel from Arnott, Limberlost, was released in 2022. It became Arnott's second novel to win The Age Book of the Year Award, was shortlisted for the 2023 Miles Franklin Award,^[9] and won the 2023 Voss Literary Prize.^[10] It was also longlisted for the 2024 International Dublin Literary Award.^[11] Like Arnott's previous novels, Limberlost found critical success both in Australia and internationally, with positive reviews from noted critics and newspapers.^[12][13][14]

His fourth novel, Dusk, was published in October 2024.^[15][16][17] It won the 2025 Indie Book Awards Book of the Year – Fiction^[18] and was joint winner of the ARA Historical Novel Prize.^[19]

As of 2025 he was working at an advertising agency three days a week, and devoting one day per week to writing.^[20]

Robbie Arnott was born in 1988 or 1989^[20] in Launceston, Tasmania.^[21]

He married Emily, and as of March 2025 they had one daughter and were expecting their second child. They were living in Hobart.^[20]