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 Steven Carroll – A New England Affair Felicity Castagna – No More Boats J. M. Coetzee – The Schooldays of Jesus Michelle de Kretser – The Life to Come Robert Drewe – Whipbird Richard Flanagan – First Person Eva Hornung – The Last Garden Sofie Laguna – The Choke Alex Miller – The Passage of Love Gerald Murnane – Border Districts Bram Presser – The Book of Dirt Mirandi Riwoe – The Fish Girl Kim Scott – Taboo Jock Serong – On the Java Ridge
Short story collections Melanie Cheng – Australia Day
Children's and Young Adult fiction Judith Clarke – My Lovely Frankie Zana Fraillon – The Ones That Disappeared Morris Gleitzman – Maybe Andy Griffiths The Tree House Fun Book 2 The 91-Storey Treehouse Jessica Townsend – Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow
Crime Sarah Bailey — The Dark Lake Alan Carter — Marlborough Man Peter Corris — Win, Lose or Draw Garry Disher — Under the Cold Bright Lights Sulari Gentill — Crossing the Lines Anna George — The Lone Child Jane Harper – Force of Nature Wendy James – The Golden Child Adrian McKinty — Police at the Station and They Don't Look Friendly Michael Robotham — The Secrets She Keeps Iain Ryan — The Student Sarah Schmidt — See What I Have Done Ann Turner — Out of the Ice Emma Viskic – And Fire Came Down
Science Fiction, Fantasy and Speculative fiction Claire G. Coleman – Terra Nullius Thoraiya Dyer – Crossroads of Canopy Greg Egan Dichronauts "Uncanny Valley" Ian Irvine – The Fatal Gate Kris Kneen – An Uncertain Grace Catherine McKinnon – Storyland Jane Rawson – From the Wreck Angela Slatter – Corpselight Cat Sparks – Lotus Blue
Poetry Michael Farrell – I Love Poetry Bella Li – Argosy Jennifer Maiden – The Metronome Alan Wearne – These Things Are Real Fiona Wright – Domestic Interior
Drama Tommy Murphy – Mark Colvin's Kidney Alana Valentine & Ursula Yovich – Barbara and the Camp Dogs
Biographies Bernadette Brennan – A Writing Life: Helen Garner and Her Work Judith Brett — The Enigmatic Mr Deakin Brentley Frazer – Scoundrel Days: A Memoir Sarah Krasnostein – The Trauma Cleaner
Non-fiction Peter FitzSimons – Burke and Wills: The Triumph and Tragedy of Australia's Most Famous Explorers Kate Grenville – The Case Against Fragrance John Safran – Depends What You Mean by Extremist Alexis Wright – Tracker
Awards and honours
Note: these awards were presented in the year in question.
Lifetime achievement
Award Author Patrick White Award Tony Birch
Literary
Award Author Title Publisher ALS Gold Medal Zoe Morrison Music and Freedom Random House Colin Roderick Award Josephine Wilson Extinctions UWA Publishing Indie Book Awards Book of the Year Jane Harper The Dry Macmillan Nita Kibble Literary Award Not awarded Stella Prize Heather Rose The Museum of Modern Love Allen & Unwin Victorian Prize for Literature Leah Purcell The Drover's Wife Currency Press
Fiction
National
Award Author Title Publisher Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature Not awarded The Australian/Vogel Literary Award Marija Peričić The Lost Pages Allen & Unwin Barbara Jefferis Award Not awarded Indie Book Awards Book of the Year – Fiction Dominic Smith The Last Painting of Sara de Vos Sarah Crichton Books Indie Book Awards Book of the Year – Debut Fiction Jane Harper The Dry Macmillan Miles Franklin Award Josephine Wilson Extinctions UWA Publishing Prime Minister's Literary Awards Ryan O'Neill Their Brilliant Careers Black Inc New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Heather Rose The Museum of Modern Love Allen & Unwin Queensland Literary Awards Melissa Ashley The Birdman’s Wife Affirm Press Victorian Premier's Literary Award Georgia Blain Between a Wolf and a Dog Scribe Western Australian Premier's Book Awards Not awarded Voss Literary Prize Mark O'Flynn The Last Days of Ava Langdon University of Queensland Press
Children and Young Adult National
Award Category Author Title PublisherChildren's Book of the Year Award 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 & UnwinIndie Book Awards Book of the Year Children's Jeannie Baker Circle Walker Books Young Adult Cath Crowley Words in Deep Blue Pan MacMillanNew South Wales Premier's Literary Awards 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 Young Adult Fiction Randa Abdel-Fattah When Michael Met Mina Pan Australia
Crime and Mystery
International
Award Author Title Publisher CWA Gold Dagger Award Jane Harper The Dry Macmillan Publishers
National
Award Category Author Title PublisherDavitt Award 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 PublishersNed Kelly Award Novel Adrian McKinty Police at the Station and They Don't Look Friendly Seventh Street Books First novel Jane Harper The Dry Macmillan PublishersTrue 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 PublisherAurealis Award 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 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 Not awarded Anne Elder Award Berndt Sellheim Awake at the Wheel Vagabond PressMary Gilmore Award Aden Rolfe False Nostalgia Giramondo PublishingPrime Minister's Literary Awards Anthony Lawrence Headwaters Pitt Street Poetry New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Peter Boyle Ghostspeaking Vagabond Press Queensland Literary Awards Antigone Kefala Fragments Giramondo Publishing Victorian Premier's Literary Award Maxine Beneba Clarke Carrying the World Hachette Australia Western Australian Premier's Book Awards Not awarded
Drama
Award Category Author Title Publisher New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Script Shirley Birse The Code, Series 2, Episode 4 PlaymakerPatrick 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 Non-Fiction Not awarded Indie Book Awards Book of the Year Non-Fiction Helen Garner Everywhere I Look Text Publishing National Biography Award Biography Tom D C Roberts Before Rupert: Keith Murdoch and the Birth of a Dynasty UQP New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Non-Fiction Thornton McCamish Our Man Elsewhere: In Search of Alan Moorehead Black IncNew South Wales Premier's History Awards 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 Non-Fiction Cathy McLennan Saltwater University of Queensland Press Victorian Premier's Literary Award 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) 10 March – Bill Leak, editorial and political cartoonist, caricaturist and portraitist (born 1956) 9 April – John Clarke, comedian, writer and satirist (born 1948 in New Zealand) 22 April – Donna Williams, writer, artist, singer-songwriter, screenwriter and sculptor (born 1963) 2 May – Michael Gurr, playwright, author, speech writer and screenwriter (born 1961) 3 May – Rosie Scott, novelist and lecturer (born 1948 in Wellington, New Zealand) 26 June – Jimmy Chi, playwright and composer (born 1948) 27 June – Rae Desmond Jones, poet, novelist, short story writer and politician (born 1941) 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) 3 August – Jack Wodhams, science fiction writer (born 1931 in London) 6 November – Sylvia Lawson, historian, journalist and critic (born 1932) 1 December – Ken Inglis, historian (born 1929) 22 December – Lilith Norman, children's writer and editor (born 1927)
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