2020 in Australian literature

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See also: 2019 in Australian literature, 2020 in Australia, and 2021 in Australian literature

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, Ghost Species
  • Trent Dalton, All Our Shimmering Skies
  • Jon Doust, Return Ticket
  • Chris Flynn, Mammoth
  • Anna Goldsworthy, Melting Moments
  • Kate Grenville, A Room Made of Leaves
  • Tom Keneally, The Dickens Boy
  • Bem Le Hunte, Elephants with Headlights
  • Sofie Laguna, Infinite Splendours
  • Amanda Lohrey, The Labyrinth
  • Laura Jean McKay, The Animals in That Country
  • Ronnie Scott, The Adversary
  • Pip Williams, The Dictionary of Lost Words
  • Evie Wyld, The Bass Rock

Children's and young adult fiction[]

Crime[]

  • Anne Buist, The Long Shadow
  • Candice Fox, Gathering Dark
  • Dervla McTiernan, The Good Turn

Science Fiction and Fantasy[]

Poetry[]

  • Laurie Duggan, Homer Street
  • Michael Farrell, Family Trees
  • Kate Llewellyn, Harbour
  • Felicity Plunkett, A Kinder Sea
  • Ellen van Neerven
    • Homeland Calling: Words from a new generation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices (as editor)
    • Throat

Non-fiction[]

  • Julia Baird, Phosphorescence: On awe, wonder and things that sustain you when the world goes dark
  • Richard Fidler, The Golden Maze: A History of Prague
  • Michael Gawenda, The Powerbroker: Mark Leibler, an Australian Life
  • Eddie Jaku, The Happiest Man on Earth
  • John Kinsella, Displaced: A Rural Life
  • Michael Gawenda, The Powerbroker: Mark Leibler, an Australian
  • Sophie McNeill, We Can't Say We Didn't Know: Dispatches from an age of impunity
  • Brenda Niall, Friends and Rivals: Four Great Australian Writers: Barbara Baynton, Ethel Turner, Nettie Palmer, Henry Handel Richardson
  • Caroline Overington, Missing William Tyrrell
  • Christopher Pyne, The Insider: The scoops, the scandals and the serious business within the Canberra bubble
  • Cassandra Pybus, Truganini: Journey Through the Apocalypse
  • Miranda Tapsell, Top End Girl
  • Robert Tickner, Ten Doors Down: The Story of an Extraordinary Adoption Reunion
  • Malcolm Turnbull, A Bigger Picture

Awards and honours[]

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

Lifetime achievement[]

Award Author
Patrick White Award Gregory Day[1]

Fiction[]

National[]

Award Category Author Title Publisher
Miles Franklin Literary Award[2] Fiction Tara June Winch The Yield Penguin Random House
Prime Minister's Literary Awards[3] Fiction Tara June Winch The Yield Penguin Random House
New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards[4] Tara June Winch The Yield Penguin Random House
Queensland Literary Awards[5] Fiction Stone Sky Gold Mountain University of Queensland Press
Stella Prize[6] Jess Hill See What You Made Me Do Black Inc
Victorian Premier's Literary Awards[7][8] Literature , with Eamon Flack Counting and Cracking Belvoir and Co-Curious
Fiction Christos Tsiolkas Damascus Allen & Unwin

Children and Young Adult[]

National[]

Award Category Author Title Publisher
Children's Book of the Year Award[9] Older Readers Vikki Wakefield This Is How We Change the Ending Text Publishing
Younger Readers Pip Harry The Little Wave University of Queensland Press
Picture Book Chris McKimmie I Need a Parrot Ford Street
Early Childhood Frances Watts My Friend Fred Allen & Unwin
Eve Pownall Award for Information Books Bruce Pascoe Young Dark Emu: A truer history Magabala Books
New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards[4] Children's Lian Tanner & Jonathan Bentley Ella and the Ocean Allen & Unwin
Young People's Karen Foxlee Lenny's Book of Everything Allen & Unwin
Victorian Premier's Literary Awards[7][8] Young Adult Fiction Helena Fox How It Feels to Float Pan Macmillan Australia

Crime and Mystery[]

National[]

Award Category Author Title Publisher
Davitt Award[10] Novel Meg Mundell The Trespassers UQP
Ned Kelly Award[11] Novel Christian White The Wife and the Widow Affirm Press
First novel Natalie Conyer Present Tense Clan Destine Press

Science Fiction[]

Award Category Author Title Publisher
Ditmar Award[12] Novel Gillian Polack The Year of the Fruit Cake IFWG Publishing
Best Short Fiction Rivqa Rafael "Whom My Soul Loves"

Non-Fiction[]

Award Category Author Title Publisher
National Biography Award[13] Biography Patrick Mullins Tiberius with a Telephone: The life and stories of William McMahon Scribe Publications
New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards[4] Non-Fiction Patrick Mullins Tiberius with a Telephone: The Life and Stories of William McMahon Scribe Publications
New South Wales Premier's History Awards Australian History James Dunk Bedlam at Botany Bay NewSouth Publishing[14]
Community and Regional History Callum Clayton-Dixon Surviving New England: A History of Aboriginal Resistance and Resilience Through the First Forty Years of Colonial Apocalypse Nēwara Aboriginal Corporation[15]
General History Kate Fullagar The Warrior, the Voyager, and the Artist: Three Lives in an Age of Empire Yale University Press[16]
Queensland Literary Awards[5] Non-Fiction Joe Gorman Heartland: How Rugby League Explains Queensland University of Queensland Press
Victorian Premier's Literary Awards[7][8] Non-Fiction Christina Thompson Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia HarperCollins

Poetry[]

Award Author Title Publisher
Anne Elder Award (joint winners)[17] Cham Zhi Yi blur by the Subbed In
Gareth Sion Jenkins Recipes for the Disaster Five Islands Press
New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards[4] Peter Boyle Enfolded in the Wings of a Great Darkness Vagabond Press
Victorian Premier's Literary Awards[7][8] Charmaine Papertalk Green Nganajungu Yagu Cordite

Drama[]

Award Category Author Title
New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards[4] Script Kylie Boltin Missing
Jacquelin Perske The Cry, Episode 2
Play S. Shakthidharan Counting and Cracking

Deaths[]

  • 1 January – Alexander Frater, 82, travel writer and journalist[18]
  • 6 January – Timoshenko Aslanides, 76, poet[19]
  • 20 January – Steph Bowe, 25, young adult novelist and blogger[20]
  • 1 April – Bruce Dawe, 90, poet[21]
  • 14 May – Judith Clarke, 76, writer for children and teenagers[22]
  • 5 June – Andrew Riemer, 84, literary critic and author[23]
  • 10 June – Jesse Blackadder, 56, novelist, screenwriter and journalist[24]
  • 7 July – Elizabeth Harrower, 92, novelist[25]
  • 10 September – Barbara Ker Wilson, 90, English-born Australian editor and novelist[26]
  • 29 September – Ania Walwicz, poet, playwright, prose writer and visual artist[27]
  • 6 November – Gerald Stone, 87, journalist[28]
  • 14 November – Greg Growden, 60, sports journalist, author and biographer[29]

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ "Day wins Patrick White Literary Award". Books+Publishing. 30 November 2020. Retrieved 30 November 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  2. ^ "Winch wins 2020 Miles Franklin for 'The Yield'". Books+Publishing. 16 July 2020. Retrieved 16 July 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  3. ^ "Prime Minister's Literary Awards 2020 winners announced". Books+Publishing. 10 December 2020. Retrieved 10 December 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  4. ^ a b c d e Evans, Kate Evans (26 April 2020). "Novel celebrating Wiradjuri language wins Book of the Year at major literary awards". ABC News. Retrieved 26 April 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  5. ^ a b Kim, Sharnie (4 September 2020). "Book about rugby league takes out richest prize in Queensland Literary Awards". ABC News. Retrieved 1 December 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  6. ^ Convery, Stephanie (14 April 2020). "Jess Hill wins $50,000 Stella prize for See What You Made Me Do, book investigating domestic violence". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 14 April 2020.
  7. ^ a b c d "Victorian Premier's Literary Awards 2020". The Wheeler Centre. Retrieved 25 March 2020.
  8. ^ a b c d "Christos Tsiolkas' 'Damascus' wins best fiction at VPLAs". Books+Publishing. 11 February 2020. Retrieved 25 March 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  9. ^ "CBCA Book of the Year 2020 winners announced". Books+Publishing. 16 October 2020. Retrieved 16 October 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  10. ^ "Davitt Awards 2020 winners announced". Books+Publishing. 28 September 2020. Retrieved 1 October 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  11. ^ "Ned Kelly Awards 2020 winners announced". Books+Publishing. 15 October 2020. Retrieved 16 October 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  12. ^ "2020 Ditmar Winners". Locus Online. 21 September 2020. Retrieved 1 December 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  13. ^ "'Tiberius with a Telephone' wins National Biography Award". Books+Publishing. 31 August 2020. Retrieved 27 October 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  14. ^ "Australian History Prize". State Library of NSW. 25 March 2020. Retrieved 4 September 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  15. ^ "NSW Community and Regional History Prize". State Library of NSW. 2 April 2020. Retrieved 4 September 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  16. ^ "General History Prize". State Library of NSW. 2 April 2020. Retrieved 4 September 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  17. ^ "Cham, Jenkins named joint winners of Anne Elder poetry award". Books+Publishing. 7 May 2020. Retrieved 12 May 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  18. ^ Chesshyre, Robert (5 January 2020). "Obituary: Alexander Frater 1937-2020". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 10 January 2020.
  19. ^ "Timoshenko Aslanides". AustLit: Discover Australian Stories. Retrieved 5 February 2022.
  20. ^ Carmody, Broede (21 January 2020). "Great human': Tributes flow for YA author Steph Bowe". Sydney Morning-Herald.
  21. ^ Romei, Stephen (2 April 2020). "Australian poet Bruce Dawe dies, aged 90". The Australian. News Limited. Retrieved 2 April 2020.
  22. ^ "Vale Judith Clarke". Books+Publishing. 20 May 2020. Retrieved 16 October 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  23. ^ "Andrew Peter Riemer – Death Notice". The Sydney Morning Herald. 13 June 2020. Retrieved 20 September 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  24. ^ Moran, Robert. "Award-winning author Jesse Blackadder dies, aged 56". Sydney Morning Herald. Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 4 July 2020.
  25. ^ "Obituary - Elizabeth Harrower - Obituaries Australia". oa.anu.edu.au. Retrieved 12 July 2020.
  26. ^ "Barbara Ker Wilson". My Tributes. Retrieved 3 December 2020.
  27. ^ "Ania Walwicz Death Notice - Melbourne, Victoria | The Age". tributes.theage.com.au. Retrieved 16 October 2020.
  28. ^ Idato, Michael (6 November 2020). "60 minutes trailblazer and legendary TV producer Gerald Stone dead". The Age. Retrieved 6 November 2020.
  29. ^ FitzSimons, Peter (14 November 2020). "Vale Greg Growden, you will be long remembered". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 15 November 2020.
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