2020 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
• Gail Jones – Our Shadows
• Tom Keneally – The Dickens Boy
• Sofie Laguna – Infinite Splendours
• Bem Le Hunte – Elephants with Headlights
• Carol Lefevre – Murmurations
• S. L. Lim – Revenge
• Amanda Lohrey – The Labyrinth
• Laura Jean McKay – The Animals in That Country
• Andrew Pippos – Lucky's
• Mirandi Riwoe – Stone Sky Gold Mountain
• Madeleine Ryan – A Room Called Earth
• Philip Salom – The Fifth Season
• Ronnie Scott – The Adversary
• Jock Serong – The Burning Island
• Craig Silvey – Honeybee
• Nardi Simpson – Song of the Crocodile
• Madeleine Watts – The Inland Sea
• Gina Wilkinson – When the Apricots Bloom
• Pip Williams – The Dictionary of Lost Words
• Daniel Davis Wood – At the Edge of the Solid World
• Evie Wyld – The Bass Rock

Short stories

• Melissa Manning – Smokehouse

Children's and young adult fiction

• Davina Bell – The End of the World is Bigger than Love
• Alex Dyson – When It Drops
• Alison Evans – Euphoria Kids
• Zana Fraillon – The Lost Soul Atlas
• Jane Godwin – When Rain Turns to Snow
• Kate Gordon – Aster's Good, Right Things
• Libby Hathorn and Lisa Hathorn-Jarman – No! Never!
• Will Kostakis
• Rebel Gods
• The Greatest Hit
• Anna McGregor – Anemone Is Not The Enemy
• Cath Moore – Metal Fish, Falling Snow
• Jaclyn Moriarty – The Stolen Prince of Cloudburst
• Sally Murphy – Worse Things
• Katrina Nannestad – We Are Wolves
• Garth Nix – The Left-Handed Booksellers of London
• Kirli Saunders – Bindi
• Shaun Tan – Dog
• Jessica Townsend – '

Crime

• Anne Buist – The Long Shadow
• Garry Disher – Consolation
• Candice Fox – Gathering Dark
• Sulari Gentill – A Testament of Character
• Jane Harper – The Survivors
• Sally Hepworth – The Good Sister
• Dervla McTiernan – The Good Turn
• J. P. Pomare – Tell Me Lies
• Michael Robotham – When She Was Good
• Sarah Thornton – White Throat
• David Whish-Wilson – True West

Science Fiction and Fantasy

• Max Barry – Providence
• Trudi Canavan – Maker's Curse
• Greg Egan – Instantiation
• Dennis Glover – Factory 19
• Sam Hawke – Hollow Empire
• Gillian Polack – Poison & Light
• Paul Voermans – The White Library

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
• Grace Karskens – People of the River: Lost worlds of early Australia
• 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 – '
• 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

Literary

Fiction

National

Children and Young Adult

National

Crime and Mystery

International

National

Science fiction

Poetry

Drama

Non-Fiction

Deaths

• 1 January – Alexander Frater, travel writer and journalist (born 1937 in Vanuatu)
• 6 January – Timoshenko Aslanides, poet (born 1943)
• 20 January – Steph Bowe, young adult novelist and blogger (born 1994)
• 1 April – Bruce Dawe, poet (born 1930)
• 14 May – Judith Clarke, writer for children and teenagers (born 1943)
• 5 June – Andrew Riemer, literary critic and author (born 1936)
• 10 June – Jesse Blackadder, novelist, screenwriter and journalist (born 1964)
• 7 July – Elizabeth Harrower, novelist (born 1928)
• 10 September – Barbara Ker Wilson, English-born Australian editor and novelist (born 1929)
• 29 September – Ania Walwicz, poet, playwright, prose writer and visual artist (born 1951 in Poland)
• 6 November – Gerald Stone, journalist (born 1933 in USA)
• 14 November – Greg Growden, sports journalist, author and biographer (born 1959/60)
• 9 December – Mungo MacCallum, political journalist and commentator (born 1941)
• 12 December – Wendy Brennan, romantic fiction writer (co-wrote with husband Frank Brennan as Emma Darcy) (born 1940)

See also

• 2020 in Australia
• 2020 in literature
• 2020 in poetry
• List of years in Australian literature
• List of years in literature
• List of Australian literary awards

References