 | |
| Author | Sonya Hartnett |
|---|---|
| Country | Australia |
| Language | English |
| Genre | novel |
| Publisher | Penguin, Australia |
Publication date | 2014 |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| Pages | 238 |
| ISBN | 9781926428611 |
| Preceded by | The Children of the King |
Golden Boys (2014) is a novel by Australian author Sonya Hartnett. [1]
Golden Boys is a novel of lost childhood innocence, and the loss of societal patterns of behaviour that allowed young children to roam the streets in the late 70s and early 80s. The novel tells the story of two twelve-year-olds, Colt Jenson and Freya Kiley, who are moving out of childhood as they realise that their families have dark secrets.
Linda Funnell in The Sydney Morning Herald found the novel considers many "sombre themes" but is "saturated in a suburban landscape of decades past, where boys ride bicycles through silent streets, play pinball machines at the local milk bar, and hang out in the mouth of the huge stormwater drain beside a patch of waste ground, untroubled by mobile phones or the internet." [2]
Victoria Flanagan in Sydney Review of Books noted that the author "has a talent for writing about difficult or contentious subjects in innovative and sensitive ways". [3]
The Miles Franklin Literary Award is an annual literary prize awarded to "a novel which is of the highest literary merit and presents Australian life in any of its phases". The award was set up according to the will of Miles Franklin (1879–1954), who is best known for writing the Australian classic My Brilliant Career (1901). She bequeathed her estate to fund this award. As of 2016, the award is valued at A$60,000.
Sonya Louise Hartnett is an Australian author of fiction for adults, young adults, and children. She has been called "the finest Australian writer of her generation". For her career contribution to "children's and young adult literature in the broadest sense" Hartnett won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award from the Swedish Arts Council in 2008, the biggest prize in children's literature.
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