2017 in Australian literature

This article presents a list of the historical events and publications of Australian literature during 2017.

Major publications

Literary fiction

• Peter Carey – A Long Way from Home ^[1]
• Felicity Castagna – No More Boats ^[2]
• J. M. Coetzee – The Schooldays of Jesus
• Michelle de Kretser – The Life to Come
• Robert Drewe – Whipbird ^[3]
• Richard Flanagan – First Person ^[4]
• Eva Hornung – The Last Garden ^[5]
• Sofie Laguna – The Choke ^[6]
• Alex Miller – The Passage of Love
• Gerald Murnane – Border Districts ^[7]
• Bram Presser – The Book of Dirt ^[8]
• Kim Scott – Taboo ^[9]

Children's and Young Adult fiction

• Judith Clarke – My Lovely Frankie ^[10]
• Zana Fraillon – The Ones That Disappeared ^[11]
• Morris Gleitzman – Maybe ^[12]
• Andy Griffiths
  • The Tree House Fun Book 2 ^[13]
  • The 91-Storey Treehouse ^[14]
• Jessica Townsend – Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow

Crime

• Sarah Bailey — The Dark Lake ^[15]
• Alan Carter — Marlborough Man ^[16]
• Peter Corris — Win, Lose or Draw ^[17]
• Garry Disher — Under the Cold Bright Lights ^[18]
• Sulari Gentill — Crossing the Lines
• Anna George — The Lone Child ^[19]
• Jane Harper – Force of Nature
• Wendy James – The Golden Child ^[20]
• Michael Robotham — The Secrets She Keeps ^[21]
• Iain Ryan — The Student ^[22]
• Sarah Schmidt — See What I Have Done ^[23]
• Ann Turner — Out of the Ice ^[24]

Science Fiction, Fantasy and Speculative fiction

• Claire G. Coleman – Terra Nullius
• Thoraiya Dyer – Crossroads of Canopy
• Greg Egan - "Uncanny Valley" ^[25]
• Ian Irvine – The Fatal Gate ^[26]
• Catherine McKinnon – Storyland ^[27]
• Jane Rawson – From the Wreck
• Angela Slatter – Corpselight ^[28]
• Cat Sparks – Lotus Blue ^[29]

Poetry

• Michael Farrell – I Love Poetry ^[30]
• Bella Li – Argosy ^[31]
• Jennifer Maiden – The Metronome ^[32]
• Alan Wearne – These Things Are Real ^[33]
• Fiona Wright – Domestic Interior ^[34]

Drama

• Tommy Murphy – Mark Colvin's Kidney

Biographies

• Judith Brett — The Enigmatic Mr Deakin ^[35]
• Brentley Frazer – Scoundrel Days: A Memoir

Non-fiction

• Peter FitzSimons – Burke and Wills: The Triumph and Tragedy of Australia's Most Famous Explorers ^[36]
• Kate Grenville – The Case Against Fragrance ^[37]
• John Safran – Depends What You Mean by Extremist
• Alexis Wright – Tracker ^[38]

Awards and honours

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

Lifetime achievement

Award	Author
Patrick White Award [39]	Tony Birch

Literary

Award	Author	Title	Publisher
ALS Gold Medal [40]	Zoe Morrison	Music and Freedom	Random House
Colin Roderick Award [41]	Josephine Wilson	Extinctions	UWA Publishing
Indie Book Awards Book of the Year [42]	Jane Harper	The Dry	Macmillan
Nita Kibble Literary Award [43]	Not awarded
Stella Prize [44]	Heather Rose	The Museum of Modern Love	Allen & Unwin
Victorian Prize for Literature [45]	Leah Purcell	The Drover's Wife	Currency Press

Fiction

National

Award	Author	Title	Publisher
Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature [46]	Not awarded
The Australian/Vogel Literary Award [47]	Marija Peričić	The Lost Pages	Allen & Unwin
Barbara Jefferis Award [48]	Not awarded
Indie Book Awards Book of the Year – Fiction [42]	Dominic Smith	The Last Painting of Sara de Vos	Sarah Crichton Books
Indie Book Awards Book of the Year – Debut Fiction [42]	Jane Harper	The Dry	Macmillan
Miles Franklin Award [49]	Josephine Wilson	Extinctions	UWA Publishing
Prime Minister's Literary Awards [50]	Ryan O'Neill	Their Brilliant Careers	Black Inc
New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards [51]	Heather Rose	The Museum of Modern Love	Allen & Unwin
Queensland Literary Awards [52]	Melissa Ashley	The Birdman’s Wife	Affirm Press
Victorian Premier's Literary Award [53]	Georgia Blain	Between a Wolf and a Dog	Scribe

Children and Young Adult

National

Award	Category	Author	Title	Publisher
Children's Book of the Year Award [54]	Older Readers	Claire Zorn	One Would Think the Deep	UQP
	Younger Readers	Trace Balla	Rockhopping	Allen & Unwin
	Picture Book	Bob Graham	Home in the Rain	Walker Books
	Early Childhood	Johanna Bell, illus. Dion Beasley	Go Home, Cheeky Animals!	Allen & Unwin
Indie Book Awards Book of the Year [42]	Children's	Jeannie Baker	Circle	Walker Books
	Young Adult	Cath Crowley	Words in Deep Blue	Pan MacMillan
New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards [51]	Children's	Leanne Hall	Iris and the Tiger	Text Publishing
	Young People's	James Roy and Noël Zihabamwe	One Thousand Hills	Omnibus Books, Scholastic Australia
Victorian Premier's Literary Award [53]	Young Adult Fiction	Randa Abdel-Fattah	When Michael Met Mina	Pan Australia

Crime and Mystery

International

Award	Author	Title	Publisher
CWA Gold Dagger Award [55]	Jane Harper	The Dry	Macmillan Publishers

National

Award	Category	Author	Title	Publisher
Davitt Award [56]	Novel	Jane Harper	The Dry	Macmillan Publishers
	Young adult novel	Shivaun Plozza	Frankie	Penguin
	Children's novel	Judith Rossell	Wormwood Mire: A Stella Montgomery Intrigue	HarperCollins
	True crime	Megan Norris	Look What You Made Me Do: Fathers Who Kill	Big Sky Publishing
	Debut novel	Cath Ferla	Ghost Girls	Echo Publishing
	Readers' choice	Jane Harper	The Dry	Macmillan Publishers
Ned Kelly Award [57]	Novel	Adrian McKinty	Police at the Station and They Don't Look Friendly	Seventh Street Books
	First novel	Jane Harper	The Dry	Macmillan Publishers
	True crime	Duncan McNab	Getting Away With Murder	Random House
		Brendan James Murray	The Drowned Man	Echo Publishing
	Lifetime achievement	Not awarded

Science fiction

Award	Category	Author	Title	Publisher
Aurealis Award [58]	Sf Novel	Jane Rawson	From the Wreck	Transit Lounge
	Sf Short Story	Garth Nix	"Conversations with an Armoury"	Solaris (Infinity Wars)
	Fantasy Novel	Jay Kristoff	Godsgrave	HarperCollins Publishers
	Fantasy Short Story	Tansy Rayner Roberts	"The Curse is Come Upon Me, Cried"	Please Look After This Angel & Other Winged Stories (self-published)
	Horror Novel	Lois Murphy	Soon	Transit Lounge
	Horror Short Story	J Ashley-Smith	"Old Growth"	IFWG Publishing Australia (SQ Mag 31)
	Young Adult Novel	Cally Black	In the Dark Spaces	Hardie Grant Egmont
	Young Adult Short Story	Tansy Rayner Roberts	"Girl Reporter"	Girl Reporter (Book Smugglers)
Ditmar Award [59]	Novel	Kaaron Warren	The Grief Hole	IWFG Publishing Australia
	Best Novella or Novelette	Tansy Rayner Roberts	"Did We Break the End of the World?"	Defying Doomsday (Twelfth Planet Press)
	Best Short Story	Cat Sparks	"No Fat Chicks"	In Your Face (TableCroft Publishing)

Poetry

Award	Author	Title	Publisher
Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature [46]	Not awarded
Anne Elder Award [60]	Berndt Sellheim	Awake at the Wheel	Vagabond Press
Mary Gilmore Award [61]	Aden Rolfe	False Nostalgia	Giramondo Publishing
New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards [51]	Peter Boyle	Ghostspeaking	Vagabond Press
Victorian Premier's Literary Award [53]	Maxine Beneba Clarke	Carrying the World	Hachette Australia

Drama

Award	Category	Author	Title	Publisher
New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards [51]	Script	Shirley Birse	The Code, Series 2, Episode 4	Playmaker
Patrick White Playwrights' Award	Award	Kim Ho	Mirror's Edge	Sydney Theatre Company
	Fellowship	Sue Smith

Non-Fiction

Award	Category	Author	Title	Publisher
Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature [46]	Non-Fiction	Not awarded
Indie Book Awards Book of the Year [42]	Non-Fiction	Helen Garner	Everywhere I Look	Text Publishing
National Biography Award [62]	Biography	Tom D C Roberts	Before Rupert: Keith Murdoch and the Birth of a Dynasty	UQP
New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards [51]	Non-Fiction	Thornton McCamish	Our Man Elsewhere: In Search of Alan Moorehead	Black Inc
New South Wales Premier's History Awards [63]	Australian History	Mark McKenna	From the Edge: Australia’s Lost Histories	Melbourne University Publishing
	Community and Regional History	Peter Hobbins, Ursula K Frederick and Anne Clarke	Stories from the Sandstone: Quarantine Inscriptions from Australia’s Immigrant Past	Arbon Publishing
	General History	Sandra Wilson, Robert Cribb, Beatrice Trefalt and Dean Aszkielowicz	Japanese War Criminals: The Politics of Justice after the Second World War	Columbia University Press
Queensland Literary Awards [52]	Non-Fiction	Cathy McLennan	Saltwater	University of Queensland Press
Victorian Premier's Literary Award [53]	Non-fiction	Madeline Gleeson	Offshore: Behind the Wire on Manus and Nauru	NewSouth Publishing

Deaths

• 12 January – Jill Roe, historian, academic and author (born 1940) ^[64]
• 10 March – Bill Leak, editorial and political cartoonist, caricaturist and portraitist (born 1956) ^[65]
• 9 April – John Clarke, comedian, writer and satirist (born 1948 in New Zealand) ^[66]
• 22 April – Donna Williams, writer, artist, singer-songwriter, screenwriter and sculptor (born 1963) ^[67]
• 2 May – Michael Gurr, playwright, author, speech writer and screenwriter (born 1961) ^[68]
• 3 May – Rosie Scott, novelist and lecturer (born 1948 in Wellington, New Zealand) ^[69]
• 26 June – Jimmy Chi, playwright and composer (born 1948) ^[70]
• 27 June – Rae Desmond Jones, poet, novelist, short story writer and politician (born 1941) ^[71]
• 2 July – Fay Zwicky, poet, short-story writer, critic and academic best known for her autobiographical poem Kaddish, about her identity as a Jewish writer (born 1933) ^[72]
• 3 August – Jack Wodhams, science fiction writer (born 1931 in London) ^[73]
• 6 November – Sylvia Lawson, historian, journalist and critic (born 1932) ^[74]
• 1 December – Ken Inglis, historian (born 1929) ^[75]
• 22 December – Lilith Norman, children's writer and editor (born 1927) ^[76]

See also

• 2017 in Australia
• 2017 in literature
• 2017 in poetry
• List of years in Australian literature
• List of years in literature
• List of Australian literary awards

References

1. "A Long Way from Home by Peter Carey". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 May 2024.
2. "No More Boats by Felicity Castagna". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 May 2024.
3. "Whipbird by Robert Drewe". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 May 2024.
4. "First Person by Richard Flanagan". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 May 2024.
5. "The Last Garden by Eva Hornung". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 May 2024.
6. "The Choke by Sofia Laguna". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 May 2024.
7. "Border Districts by Gerald Murnane". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 May 2024.
8. "The Book of Dirt by Bram Presser". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 May 2024.
9. "Taboo by Kim Scott". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 May 2024.
10. "My Lovely Frankie by Judith Clarke". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 May 2024.
11. "The Ones That Disappeared by Zana Fraillon". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 May 2024.
12. "Maybe by Morris Gleitzman". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 May 2024.
13. "The Tree House Fun Book 2 by Andy Griffiths". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 May 2024.
14. "The 91-Storey Treehouse by Andy Griffiths". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 May 2024.
15. "The Dark Lake by Sarah Bailey". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 May 2024.
16. "Marlborough Man by Alan Carter". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 May 2024.
17. "Win, Lose or Draw by Peter Corris". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 May 2024.
18. "Under the Cold Bright Lights by Garry Disher". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 May 2024.
19. "The Lone Child by Anna George". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 May 2024.
20. "The Golden Child by Wendy James". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 May 2024.
21. "The Secrets She Keeps by Michael Robotham". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 May 2024.
22. "The Student by Iain Ryan". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 May 2024.
23. "See What I Have Done by Sarah Schmidt". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 May 2024.
24. "Out of the Ice by Ann Turner". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 May 2024.
25. ""Uncanny Valley" by Greg Egan". ISFDB. Retrieved 4 May 2024.
26. "The Fatal Gate by Ian Irvine". ISFDB. Retrieved 4 May 2024.
27. "Storyland by Catherine McKinnon". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 May 2024.
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29. "Lotus Blue by Cat Sparks". ISFDB. Retrieved 4 May 2024.
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31. "Argosy by Bella Li". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 May 2024.
32. "The Metronome by Jennifer Maiden". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 May 2024.
33. "These Things Are Real by Alan Wearne". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 May 2024.
34. "Domestic Interior by Fiona Wright". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 May 2024.
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38. "Tracker by Alexis Wright". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 May 2024.
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57. "Announcing the 2017 Ned Kelly Award Winners". Australian Crime Writers Association. Archived from the original on 3 September 2017. Retrieved 8 May 2018.
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74. "Sylvia Lawson (1932-2017)". AustLit: Discover Australian Stories. The University of Queensland. Retrieved 14 February 2024.
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