This is a list of historical events and publications of Australian literature during 2020.

Major publications

Literary fiction

*Patrick Allington, ''Rise & Shine'' *Robbie Arnott, ''The Rain Heron'' *

James Bradley James Bradley (1692–1762) was an English astronomer and priest who served as the third Astronomer Royal from 1742. He is best known for two fundamental discoveries in astronomy, the aberration of light (1725–1728), and the nutation of the ...

, ''Ghost Species'' *

Trent Dalton Trent Dalton is an Australian journalist and literary fiction author. Early life Trent Dalton grew up in a Housing Commission house in Bracken Ridge, a suburb on the northern outskirts of Brisbane. Journalism Dalton worked as a journalist f ...

, ''All Our Shimmering Skies'' *

Jon Doust Jon Doust is a comedian, writer, novelist and professional speaker, born in Bridgetown, Western Australia, who lives in Albany, Western Australia. He gained a BA majoring in English from the Western Australian Institute of Technology (now Curtin ...

, ''Return Ticket'' * Chris Flynn, ''Mammoth'' *

Anna Goldsworthy Anna Goldsworthy (born 9 June 1974) is an Australian writer, teacher and classical pianist. Life Goldsworthy was born in Adelaide as the eldest daughter of the writer Peter Goldsworthy and Helen Goldsworthy. She began studying the piano at th ...

, ''Melting Moments'' *

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 '' The Idea of Perfection ...

, ''A Room Made of Leaves'' *

Tom Keneally Thomas Michael Keneally, AO (born 7 October 1935) is an Australian novelist, playwright, essayist, and actor. He is best known for his non-fiction novel ''Schindler's Ark'', the story of Oskar Schindler's rescue of Jews during the Holocaust, wh ...

, ''The Dickens Boy'' *

Sofie Laguna Sofie Laguna (born 1968) is an Australian writer. She was born in Sydney and studied law before deciding that being a lawyer was not for her. She has worked as an actor and is now a writer and playwright. She now lives in Melbourne. Awards * ...

, ''Infinite Splendours'' * Bem Le Hunte, ''Elephants with Headlights'' *Carol Lefevre, ''Murmurations'' *

Amanda Lohrey Amanda Frances Lillian Lohrey (; born 13 April 1947) is an Australian writer and novelist. Career Lohrey completed her education at the University of Tasmania before taking up a scholarship at the University of Cambridge. From 1988 to 1994 ...

, ''The Labyrinth'' *

Laura Jean McKay Laura Jean McKay (born 1978) is an Australian author and creative writing lecturer. In 2021 she won the Victorian Prize for Literature and the Arthur C. Clarke Award for her novel '' The Animals in That Country''. Life and career McKay was bor ...

, ''The Animals in That Country'' *Ronnie Scott, ''The Adversary'' *

Craig Silvey Craig Silvey (born 1 January 1982) is an Australian novelist. Silvey has twice been named one of the Best Young Australian Novelists by ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' and has been shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award. His 200 ...

, ''Honeybee'' *Pip Williams, ''

The Dictionary of Lost Words ''The Dictionary of Lost Words'' is the debut novel by Australian writer Pip Williams. It was sixth on the list of Australian fiction bestsellers for 2020 and as of 18 January 2021 it had sold more than 100,000 copies. Plot summary Esme's m ...

'' * Daniel Davis Wood, ''At the Edge of the Solid World'' *

Evie Wyld Evelyn Rose Strange "Evie" Wyld (born 16 June 1980) is an Anglo-Australian author. Her first novel, ''After the Fire, A Still Small Voice'', won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize in 2009, and her second novel, '' All the Birds, Singing'', won the E ...

, ''The Bass Rock''

Children's and young adult fiction

* K.M. Allan, ''Blackbirch: The Beginning'' * Sarah Allen, ''Busy Beaks'' *

Davina Bell Davina Bell is an Australian literary editor and children's writer. Her 2020 book, ''The End of the World Is Bigger than Love'', won a New South Wales Premier's Literary Award in 2021. Early life and education Bell was born in Perth, Western ...

, ''The End of the World Is Bigger than Love'' * Danielle Binks, ''The Year the Maps Changed'' * Belinda Crawford, ''Cold Between Stars'' * Katya de Becerra, ''Oasis'' *

Alex Dyson Alexander Edward Dyson (born 22 June 1988) is an Australian radio presenter who presented the breakfast show on Australian youth radio station Triple J from 2010 to 2016, alongside Tom Ballard and then with Matt Okine. He is also a small busines ...

, ''When It Drops'' * Sarah Epstein, ''Deep Water'' * Alison Evans, ''Euphoria Kids'' *

Zana Fraillon Zana Fraillon (born 1981) is an Australian writer of fiction for children and young adults based in Melbourne, Australia. Fraillon is known for allowing young readers to examine human rights abuses within fiction and in 2017 she won an Amnesty C ...

, ''The Lost Soul Atlas'' *

Jane Godwin Jane Godwin (born 1964 in Melbourne, Australia) is an Australian author, and is a publisher at Penguin Books Australia for children and young adult books. Godwin has sole-authored fifteen books which have been published internationally, and she ...

, ''When Rain Turns to Snow'' * Kate Gordon, ''Aster's Good, Right Things'' * Sophie Gonzales, ''Only Mostly Devastated'' * Bernadette Green, ''Who's Your Real Mum?'' *

Libby Hathorn Elizabeth Helen Hathorn (born 1943) is an Australian writer for children, and a poet who works with schools, institutions and communities. She has received many awards for her books, some of which have been translated into several languages. In ...

and Lisa Hathorn-Jarman, ''No! Never!'' * Eliza Henry-Jones, ''How to Grow a Family Tree'' * Gina Inverarity, ''Snow'' * Kay Kerr, ''Please Don't Hug Me'' *

Will Kostakis William Kostakis (born 2 June 1989) is an Australian author and journalist. In high school, he won the '' Sydney Morning Herald'' Young Writer of the Year prize for a short story called 'Bing Me'. He went on to sign his first book deal in his fi ...

** ''Rebel Gods'' ** ''The Greatest Hit'' *Jeremy Lachlan, ''Jane Doe and the Key of All Souls'' * Ellie Marney, ''None Shall Sleep'' * Anna McGregor, '' Anemone Is Not The Enemy'' * Heidi McKinnon, ''There's No Such Thing'' * Kate McMahon, ''Sea of Gratitude'' * Cath Moore, ''Metal Fish, Falling Snow'' * Anna Morgan, ''Before the Beginning'' *

Jaclyn Moriarty Jaclyn Moriarty (born 1968 in Perth) is an Australian novelist, most known for her young adult literature. She is a recipient of the Davitt Award and the Aurealis Award for best children's fiction. Biography Moriarty was raised in the north-west ...

, ''The Stolen Prince of Cloudburst'' * Sally Murphy, ''Worse Things'' * Katrina Nannestad, ''We Are Wolves'' * Christie Nieman, ''Where We Begin'' *

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 ''Old Kingdom'', '' Seventh Tower'' and '' Keys to the Kingdom'' series. He has frequently been asked if his ...

, ''The Left-Handed Booksellers of London'' * Poppy Nwosu, ''Taking Down Evelyn Tait'' * Kate O'Donnell, ''This One is Ours'' * Kirli Saunders, ''Bindi'' * Helen Scheuerer, ''Dawn of Mist'' * Astrid Scholte, ''The Vanishing Deep'' * Briony Stewart, ''We Love You, Magoo'' *

Shaun Tan Shaun Tan (born 1973) is an Australian artist, writer and film maker. He won an Academy Award for '' The Lost Thing'', a 2011 animated film adaptation of a 2000 picture book he wrote and illustrated. Other books he has written and illustrated inc ...

, ''Dog'' * Jessica Townsend, '' Hollowpox: The Hunt for Morrigan Crow'' *Lisa Walker, ''The Girl with the Gold Bikini'' *Anna Whateley, ''Peta Lyre's Rating Normal'' *Sue Whiting, ''The Book of Chance'' *Bonnie Wynne, ''The Ninth Sorceress''

Crime

* Anne Buist, ''The Long Shadow'' *

Candice Fox Candice Fox (born 1985) is an Australian novelist who won the 2014 Ned Kelly Award for Best First Novel for ''Hades''. She was born in the western suburbs of Sydney into a large family. She spent a brief period in the Royal Australian Navy befor ...

, ''Gathering Dark'' * Dervla McTiernan, ''The Good Turn''

Science Fiction and Fantasy

Max Barry Max Barry (born 18 March 1973) is an Australian author. He also maintains a blog on various topics, including politics. When he published his first novel, ''Syrup'', he spelled his name "Maxx", but subsequently has used "Max". Barry is also the ...

, ''

Providence Providence often refers to: * Providentia, the divine personification of foresight in ancient Roman religion * Divine providence, divinely ordained events and outcomes in Christianity * Providence, Rhode Island, the capital of Rhode Island in the ...

Poetry

Laurie Duggan Laurence James Duggan (born 1949), known as Laurie Duggan, is an Australian poet, editor, and translator. Life Laurie Duggan was born in Melbourne and attended Monash University, where his friends included the poets Alan Wearne and John A. Sc ...

, ''Homer Street'' * Michael Farrell, ''Family Trees'' *

Kate Llewellyn Kate Llewellyn (born 15 January 1936) is an Australian poet, author, diarist and travel writer. Biography Eldest of four children of Ron and Ivy Brinkworth (née Shemmald), Llewellyn was born Kathleen Jill Brinkworth in 1936 in Tumby Bay on Eyre ...

, ''Harbour'' * Felicity Plunkett, ''A Kinder Sea'' *

Ellen van Neerven Ellen van Neerven (born 1990) is an Aboriginal Australian author, educator and editor. They are queer and non-binary. Their first work of fiction, ''Heat and Light'' (2013), won several awards, and in 2019 Van Neerven won the Queensland Premier ...

**''Homeland Calling: Words from a new generation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices'' (as editor) **''Throat''

Non-fiction

Julia Baird Julia Baird (née Dykins; born 5 March 1947) is a British retired teacher and author. She is the younger half-sister of English musician John Lennon, and is the eldest daughter of his mother Julia Lennon and John 'Bobby' Albert Dykins. She also ...

, ''Phosphorescence: On awe, wonder and things that sustain you when the world goes dark'' *

Richard Fidler Richard is a male given name. It originates, via Old French, from Old Frankish and is a compound of the words descending from Proto-Germanic ''*rīk-'' 'ruler, leader, king' and ''*hardu-'' 'strong, brave, hardy', and it therefore means 'strong ...

, ''The Golden Maze: A History of Prague'' *

Michael Gawenda Michael Gawenda (born 1947) is an Australian journalist and was editor of ''The Age'' from 1997 to 2004. He was appointing inaugural Director of the Centre for Advanced Journalism at the University of Melbourne, launched in 2008.The centre's miss ...

, ''The Powerbroker: Mark Leibler, an Australian Life'' *

Eddie Jaku Edward Jaku (born Abraham Salomon Jakubowicz; 14 April 1920 – 12 October 2021) was a survivor of several German concentration camps during World War II, who wrote of his wartime experiences after emigrating to Australia. This memoir is called ...

, ''The Happiest Man on Earth'' * John Kinsella, ''Displaced: A Rural Life'' *

, ''The Powerbroker: Mark Leibler, an Australian'' *

Sophie McNeill Sophie McNeill is an Australian journalist, television presenter, author and human rights activist. She is best known for her work reporting from conflict zones. She was a reporter with the ABC's investigative program Four Corners and is a fo ...

, ''We Can't Say We Didn't Know: Dispatches from an age of impunity'' *

Brenda Niall Dr Brenda Mary Niall (born 25 November 1930) is an Australian biographer, literary critic and journalist. She is particularly noted for her work on Australia's well-known Boyd family of artists and writers. Educated at Genazzano FCJ College, ...

, ''Friends and Rivals: Four Great Australian Writers: Barbara Baynton, Ethel Turner, Nettie Palmer, Henry Handel Richardson'' *

Caroline Overington Caroline Overington (born 1970) is an Australian journalist and author. Overington has written 13 books. She has twice won the Walkley Award for investigative journalism, as well as winning the Sir Keith Murdoch prize for journalism (2007), th ...

, ''Missing William Tyrrell'' *

Christopher Pyne Christopher Maurice Pyne (born 13 August 1967) is a retired Australian politician. As a member of the Liberal Party, he held several ministerial positions in the Howard, Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments, and served as a member of p ...

, ''The Insider: The scoops, the scandals and the serious business within the Canberra bubble'' *

Cassandra Pybus Cassandra Jean Pybus (born 29 September 1947) is an Australian historian and writer. She is a former professorial fellow in history at the University of Sydney, and has published extensively on Australian and American history. Pybus was born i ...

, ''Truganini: Journey Through the Apocalypse'' *

Miranda Tapsell Miranda Tapsell (born 11 December 1987) is an Aboriginal Australian actress of both stage and screen, best known for her role as Cynthia in the Wayne Blair film '' The Sapphires'' and her 2015 performance as Martha Tennant in the Nine Network d ...

, ''Top End Girl'' *

Robert Tickner Robert Edward Tickner (born 24 December 1951) is a former Australian Labor Party cabinet minister. He was Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Red Cross from February 2005 to July 2015. Born in Sydney, Tickner was adopted. He later sear ...

, ''Ten Doors Down: The Story of an Extraordinary Adoption Reunion'' *

Malcolm Turnbull Malcolm Bligh Turnbull (born 24 October 1954) is an Australian former politician and businessman who served as the 29th prime minister of Australia from 2015 to 2018. He held office as leader of the Liberal Party of Australia. Turnbull grad ...

, ''A Bigger Picture''

Awards and honours

Note: these awards were presented in the year in question.

Lifetime achievement

Fiction

National

Children and Young Adult

National

Crime and Mystery

National

Science Fiction

Non-Fiction

Poetry

Drama

Deaths

* 1 January –

Alexander Frater Alexander Russell Frater (3 January 1937 – 1 January 2020) was a British travel writer and journalist. Described by Miles Kington as 'the funniest man who wrote for ''Punch'' since the war', Frater is best known for his various books and for ...

, 82, travel writer and journalist * 6 January – Timoshenko Aslanides, 76, poet * 20 January – Steph Bowe, 25, young adult novelist and blogger *1 April –

Bruce Dawe Donald Bruce Dawe (15 February 1930 – 1 April 2020) was an Australian poet and academic. Some critics consider him one of the most influential Australian poets of all time.

, 90, poet *14 May – Judith Clarke, 76, writer for children and teenagers *5 June –

Andrew Riemer Andrew Riemer (29 February 1936 – 5 June 2020) was an Australian literary critic and author, for three decades the book reviewer of the Sydney Morning Herald. Born in Budapest, he moved to Sydney at age 11. He lectured in English at the Universi ...

, 84, literary critic and author *10 June – Jesse Blackadder, 56, novelist, screenwriter and journalist *7 July – Elizabeth Harrower, 92, novelist *10 September –

Barbara Ker Wilson Barbara Ker Wilson (24 September 1929 – 10 September 2020) was an English-born Australian novelist. She is credited as the person who "discovered" Paddington Bear. She wrote over twenty books and collated collections of stories. She gained awar ...

, 90, English-born Australian editor and novelist *29 September –

Ania Walwicz Ania Walwicz (1951 – 29 September 2020) was an Australian poet, playwright, prose writer and visual artist. Early life Walwicz was born in Swidnica Polska, Swidnica, Poland where she spent her childhood, before migrating to Australia in 1963 ...

, poet, playwright, prose writer and visual artist *6 November –

Gerald Stone Gerald Louis Stone (18 August 1933 – 6 November 2020) was an American-born Australian television and radio journalist, television executive and author. Early years and career Born in 1933 and raised in Columbus, Ohio, Stone graduated in poli ...

, 87, journalist *14 November –

Greg Growden Greg Growden (1959/1960 – 14 November 2020) was an Australian sports journalist, author and biographer. Life Growden was born in Adelaide, the son of Port Adelaide Football Club player Kevin Growden. The family moved to a rice farm at Coleamb ...

, 60, sports journalist, author and biographer *12 December – Wendy Brennan, 80, romantic fiction writer (co-wrote with husband Frank Brennan as Emma Darcy)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:2020 in Australian Literature

Literature Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...

Australian literature by year Years of the 21st century in Australia Years of the 21st century in literature

Major publications

Literary fiction

Children's and young adult fiction

Crime

Science Fiction and Fantasy

Poetry

Non-fiction

Awards and honours

Lifetime achievement

Fiction

National

Children and Young Adult

National

Crime and Mystery

National

Science Fiction

Non-Fiction

Poetry

Drama

Deaths

See also

References