2021 in Australian literature

This is a list of historical events and publications of Australian literature during 2021.

Major publications

Literary fiction

• David Allan-Petale – Locust Summer
• Aravind Adiga – Amnesty
• Michael Mohammed Ahmad – The Other Half of You
• Miles Allinson – In Moonland
• Larissa Behrendt – After Story
• Steven Carroll – O
• Michelle de Kretser – Scary Monsters
• Jennifer Down – Bodies of Light
• Briohny Doyle – Echolalia
• Max Easton – The Magpie Wing
• Nikki Gemmell – The Ripping Tree
• Anita Heiss – Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray: River of Dreams
• Tom Keneally – Corporal Hitler's Pistol
• John Kinsella – Pushing Back
• Emily Maguire – Love Objects
• Jennifer Mills – The Airways
• Alice Pung – One Hundred Days
• Diana Reid – Love & Virtue
• Nicolas Rothwell – Red Heaven
• Claire Thomas – The Performance
• Christos Tsiolkas – 7 ½
• Michael Winkler – Grimmish

Short story collections

• Tony Birch – Dark as Last Night

Children's and young adult fiction

• Felicity Castagna – Girls in Boys' Cars
• Sophie Gonzales – Only Mostly Devastated
• Katrina Nannestad – Rabbit, Soldier, Angel Thief

Crime and mystery

• Tim Ayliffe – The Enemy Within
• Mark Brandi – The Others
• B. M. Carroll – You Had It Coming
• Candice Fox – The Chase
• Helen FitzGerald – Ash Mountain
• Jack Heath – Kill Your Brother
• Charlotte McConaghy – Once There Were Wolves
• Debra Oswald – The Family Doctor
• Kyle Perry – The Deep
• Michael Robotham – When You Are Mine
• Laurta Elizabeth Woollett – The Newcomer

Science fiction and fantasy

• Max Barry – The 22 Murders of Madison May
• Greg Egan – The Book of All Skies
• Jay Kristoff – Empire of the Vampire
• Shelley Parker-Chan – She Who Became the Sun
• Angela Slatter – All the Murmuring Bones
• Janeen Webb – The Five Star Republic with Andrew Enstice

Poetry

• Eunice Andrada – Take Care
• Evelyn Araluen – Dropbear
• Pam Brown – Stasis Shuffle
• Maxine Beneba Clarke – How Decent Folk Behave
• Andy Jackson – Human Looking
• Elfie Shiosaki – Homecoming
• Maria Takolander – Trigger Warning

Non-fiction

• Randa Abdel-Fattah – Coming of Age in the War on Terror
• Julia Banks – Power Play: Breaking Through Bias, Barriers and Boys' Clubs
• Alison Croggon – Monsters: A reckoning
• Jaivet Ealom – Escape From Manus
• Mehreen Faruqi – Too Migrant, Too Muslim, Too Loud
• Ross Garnaut – Reset: Restoring Australia after the Pandemic Recession
• Stan Grant – With the Falling of the Dusk
• Dale Kent – The Most I Could Be
• Scott Ludlam – Full Circle: A search for the world that comes next
• Mark McKenna – Return to Uluru
• Henry Reynolds – Truth-Telling: History, sovereignty and the Uluru Statement
• Jeff Sparrow – Crimes Against Nature: Capitalism and Global Heating
• Corey Tutt and Blak Douglas (illustrator) – The First Scientists: Deadly Inventions and Innovations from Australia's First Peoples

Collected essays

• Chelsea Watego – Another Day in the Colony

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

National

Poetry

Drama

Non-Fiction

Deaths

• 1 May – Kate Jennings, poet and writer (died in the United States) (b. 1948)
• 25 April – Valerie Parv, romance novelist (b. 1951)
• 16 May – Vera Deacon, historian (b. 1926)
• 16 September – Tim Thorne, poet (b. 1944)
• 22 November –
• Stuart Macintyre, historian (b. 1947)
• Doug MacLeod, children's writer, poet, screenwriter and playwright (b. 1959)
• Babette Smith, historian (b. 1942)
• 26 November – Desmond O'Grady, journalist and author (died in Rome) (b. 1929)
• 26 December – Paul B. Kidd, radio broadcaster and true crime writer (b. 1945)

See also

• 2021 in Australia
• 2021 in literature
• 2021 in poetry
• List of years in Australian literature
• List of years in literature
• List of Australian literary awards

References