Kim Scott

Last updated

Kim Scott

Noongarpedia gnangarra 26-jan-16-106.JPG
Born (1957-02-18) 18 February 1957 (age 67)
Perth, Western Australia, Australia
Notable awards Miles Franklin Award
2000 Benang
Miles Franklin Award
2011 That Deadman Dance

Kim Scott FAHA (born 18 February 1957) [1] is an Australian novelist of Aboriginal Australian ancestry. He is a descendant of the Noongar people of Western Australia.

Contents

Biography

Scott was born in Perth, Western Australia, in 1957 and is the eldest of four siblings with a white mother and an Aboriginal father.

Scott has written five novels and a children's book, and has had poetry and short stories published in a range of anthologies. He began writing shortly after becoming a secondary school teacher of English. His teaching experience included working in urban, rural Australia and in Portugal. He spent some time teaching at an Aboriginal community in the north of Western Australia, where he started to research his family's history. [2]

His first novel, True Country, was published in 1993 with an edition published in a French translation in 2005. His second novel, Benang, won the Western Australian Premier's Book Awards 1999, the Miles Franklin Award 2000, and the Kate Challis RAKA Award 2001. Both novels were influenced by his research and seemed to be semi-autobiographical. The themes of these novels have been said to "explore the problem of self-identity faced by light-skinned Aboriginal people and examine the government's assimilationist policies during the first decades of the twentieth century". [2]

Scott was the first indigenous writer to win the Miles Franklin Award for Benang, which has since been published in translation in France and the Netherlands. His book, Kayang and Me, was written in collaboration with Noongar elder Hazel Brown, his aunt, [2] and was published in May 2005. The work is a monumental oral-based history of the author's family, the south coast Noongar people of Western Australia. [3]

His 2010 novel That Deadman Dance (Picador) explores the lively fascination felt between Noongar, British colonists and American whalers in the early years of the 19th century. On 21 June 2011, it was announced that Scott had won the 2011 Miles Franklin Award for this novel. Scott also won the 2011 Victorian Premier's Prize for the same novel. [4]

Scott was appointed Professor of Writing in the School of Media, Culture and Creative Arts of Curtin University in December, 2011. [5] He is a member of The Centre for Culture and Technology (CCAT), leading its Indigenous Culture and Digital Technologies research program. [6] [7]

Scott lives in Coolbellup, a southern suburb of Fremantle, Western Australia, with his wife and two children.

Awards

Bibliography

Novels

Short stories

Children's picture book

Non-fiction

Notes

  1. "State Finalist Australian of the Year 2013". www.australianoftheyear.org.au/. Australian of the Year Awards. Archived from the original on 7 March 2016. Retrieved 15 July 2014.
  2. 1 2 3 "Austlit — Kim Scott". Austlit. Retrieved 29 March 2024.
  3. Kayang & Me - Fremantle Press.
  4. "Victorian Premier's Literary Awards 2011". The Wheeler Centre. Archived from the original on 8 February 2019. Retrieved 2 February 2019.
  5. Daniel, Grace (1 December 2011). "Award-winning author Kim Scott appointed Professor at Curtin - News and Events | Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia". News and Events.
  6. "Professor Kim Scott | Curtin University". ccat-lab.org. Retrieved 5 September 2015.
  7. "Indigenous Culture and Digital Technologies - Centre For Culture & Technology". ccat-lab.org. Retrieved 5 September 2015.
  8. 1 2 "Fellow Profile – Kim Scott". Australian Academy of the Humanities. Retrieved 23 November 2023.
  9. "Queensland Literary Awards 2018 winners announced | Books+Publishing". 24 October 2018. Retrieved 23 October 2018.
  10. "VPLAs 2019: Manus detainee Boochani wins $100k top prize". Books+Publishing. 1 February 2019. Retrieved 9 December 2020.
  11. "Victorian Premier's Literary Awards 2019". The Wheeler Centre. Archived from the original on 29 December 2018. Retrieved 31 January 2019.
  12. "Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature". State Library of South Australia. December 2019. Retrieved 28 January 2020.
  13. "Scott joins WA Writers Hall of Fame, WA Prem's Book Award winners announced". Books+Publishing. 10 August 2020. Retrieved 19 August 2020.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fremantle</span> Port city in Western Australia

Fremantle is a port city in Western Australia located at the mouth of the Swan River in the metropolitan area of Perth, the state capital. Fremantle Harbour serves as the port of Perth. The Western Australian vernacular diminutive for Fremantle is Freo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Noongar</span> Group of Aboriginal peoples on the southwest coast of Australia

The Noongar are Aboriginal Australian people who live in the south-west corner of Western Australia, from Geraldton on the west coast to Esperance on the south coast. There are 14 different groups in the Noongar cultural bloc: Amangu, Ballardong, Yued, Kaneang, Koreng, Mineng, Njakinjaki, Njunga, Pibelmen, Pindjarup, Wadandi, Whadjuk, Wiilman and Wudjari. The Noongar people refer to their land as Noongar boodja.

John Kinsella is an Australian poet, novelist, critic, essayist and editor. His writing is strongly influenced by landscape, and he espouses an "international regionalism" in his approach to place. He has also frequently worked in collaboration with other writers, artists and musicians.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Flanagan</span> Australian novelist

Richard Miller Flanagan is an Australian writer, who has also worked as a film director and screenwriter. He won the 2014 Man Booker Prize for his novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North.

Sally Jane Morgan is an Australian Aboriginal author, dramatist, and artist. Her works are on display in numerous private and public collections in Australia and around the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth Jolley</span> Australian writer

Monica Elizabeth Jolley AO was an English-born Australian writer who settled in Western Australia in the late 1950s and forged an illustrious literary career there. She was 53 when her first book was published, and she went on to publish fifteen novels, four short story collections and three non-fiction books, publishing well into her 70s and achieving significant critical acclaim. She was also a pioneer of creative writing teaching in Australia, counting many well-known writers such as Tim Winton among her students at Curtin University.

Fremantle Press is an independent publisher in Western Australia. Fremantle Press was established by the Fremantle Arts Centre in 1976. It focuses on publishing Western Australian writers and writing.

Australian Aboriginal culture includes a number of practices and ceremonies centered on a belief in the Dreamtime and other mythology. Reverence and respect for the land and oral traditions are emphasised. Over 300 languages and other groupings have developed a wide range of individual cultures. Due the colonization of Australia under terra nullius concept these cultures were treated as one monoculture. Australian Aboriginal art has existed for thousands of years and ranges from ancient rock art to modern watercolour landscapes. Aboriginal music has developed a number of unique instruments. Contemporary Australian Aboriginal music spans many genres. Aboriginal peoples did not develop a system of writing before colonisation, but there was a huge variety of languages, including sign languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philip Salom</span> Australian poet and novelist

Philip Salom is an Australian poet and novelist, whose poetry books have drawn widespread acclaim. His 15 collections of poetry and six novels are noted for their originality and expansiveness and surprising differences from title to title. His poetry has won awards in Australia and the UK. His novel Waiting was shortlisted for Australia's prestigious 2017 Miles Franklin Literary Award, the 2017 Prime Minister's Literary Awards and the 2016 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards. His well-reviewed novel The Returns (2019) was a finalist in the 2020 Miles Franklin Award. In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, he published The Fifth Season. Since then, he has published Sweeney and the Bicycles (2022). His most recent poetry collection is Hologrammatical (2023).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tara June Winch</span> Australian writer

Tara June Winch is an Australian writer. She is the 2020 winner of the Miles Franklin Award for her book The Yield.

<i>Benang: From the Heart</i> 1999 novel by Indigenous Australian author Kim Scott

Benang: From the Heart is a 1999 Miles Franklin Award-winning novel by Indigenous Australian author Kim Scott. The award was shared with Drylands by Thea Astley.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of Queensland Press</span> Australian publishing house

University of Queensland Press (UQP) is an Australian publishing house based in Brisbane, Queensland. Founded in 1948 as a wholly-owned subsidiary of the University of Queensland and a traditional university press, UQP now publishes books for general readers across fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, and includes works for children and young adults.

Niall Lucy was an Australian writer and scholar best known for his work in deconstruction.

<i>That Deadman Dance</i> 2010 Australian novel by Kim Scott

That Deadman Dance is the third novel by Western Australian author Kim Scott. It was first published in 2010 by Picador (Australia) and by Bloomsbury in the UK, US and Canada in 2012. It won the 2011 Regional Commonwealth Writers' Prize, the 2011 Miles Franklin Literary Award, the 2011 ALS Gold Medal, the 2011 Kate Challis RAKA Award, the 2011 Victorian Prize for Literature, the 2011 Victorian Premier's Literary Award, Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction and the 2012 NSW Premier's Literary Award Christina Stead Prize and Book of the Year.

The Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature, from 2024 the South Australian Literary Awards, comprise a group of biennially-granted literary awards established in 1986 by the Government of South Australia, announced during Adelaide Writers' Week, as part of the Adelaide Festival. The awards include national as well as state-based prizes, and offer three fellowships for South Australian writers. Several categories have been added to the original four.

Angus Wallam was a Noongar Aboriginal elder from Wagin, Western Australia. He received the Wagin Australia Day Citizenship Award for his work with Indigenous youth and community. He grew up at Marribank Mission. He worked for farmers and contractors, built roads, and worked on the railway for 22 years. He has nine children and around 40 grandchildren.

Graeme Dixon is a Noongar poet. He was born in Perth, Western Australia in 1955. His mother is a Noongar from Katanning and his father an English migrant orphan who grew up at Fairbridge Farm.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indigenous Australian literature</span> Literature produced by Indigenous Australians

Indigenous Australian literature is the fiction, plays, poems, essays and other works authored by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people of Australia.

Cheryl Kickett-Tucker is an Australian professor, author and renowned Indigenous leader. She is also a former basketball player.