# 2021 in Australian literature

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

## Major publications
### Literary fiction

* Aravind Adiga – Amnesty
* Michael Mohammed Ahmad – The Other Half of You
* 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
* Nicolas Rothwell – Red Heaven
* Claire Thomas – The Performance
* Christos Tsiolkas – 7 ½
* Michael Winkler – Grimmish

### Collected essays

* Chelsea Watego – Another Day in the Colony

### 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

### Poetry

* 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
* 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

## Awards and honours

Note: these awards were presented in the year in question.

### Lifetime achievement

| Award | Author |
| Melbourne Prize for Literature | Christos Tsiolkas |
| Patrick White Award | Adam Aitken |

### Literary

| Award | Author | Title | Publisher |
| ALS Gold Medal | Nardi Simpson | Song of the Crocodile | Hachette Australia |
| Colin Roderick Award | Sofie Laguna | Infinite Splendours | Allen & Unwin |
| Indie Book Awards Book of the Year | Pip Williams | The Dictionary of Lost Words | Affirm Press |
| New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards | Ellen van Neerven | Throat | University of Queensland Press |
| Stella Prize | Evie Wyld | The Bass Rock | Penguin Random House |
| Victorian Premier's Literary Awards | Laura Jean McKay | The Animals in That Country | Scribe |

### Fiction
#### National

| Award | Author | Title | Publisher |
| Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature | Not awarded | | |
| The Age Book of the Year | Robbie Arnott | The Rain Heron | Text Publishing |
| ARA Historical Novel Prize | Jock Serong | The Burning Island | Text Publishing |
| The Australian/Vogel Literary Award | Emma Batchelor | Now That I See You | Allen & Unwin |
| Barbara Jefferis Award | Not awarded | | |
| Indie Book Awards Book of the Year – Fiction | Craig Silvey | Honeybee | Allen & Unwin |
| Indie Book Awards Book of the Year – Debut Fiction | Pip Williams | The Dictionary of Lost Words | Affirm Press |
| Miles Franklin Award | Amanda Lohrey | The Labyrinth | Text Publishing |
| Prime Minister's Literary Awards | Amanda Lohrey | The Labyrinth | Text Publishing |
| New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards | Kate Grenville | A Room Made of Leaves | Text Publishing |
| Queensland Literary Awards | Nardi Simpson | Song of the Crocodile | Hachette Australia |
| Victorian Premier's Literary Awards | Laura Jean McKay | The Animals in That Country | Scribe |

### Children and Young Adult
#### National

| Award | Category | Author | Title | Publisher |
| ARA Historical Novel Prize | Children and Young Adult | Katrina Nannestad | We are Wolves | ABC Books |
| Children's Book of the Year Award | Older Readers | Davina Bell | The End of the World is Bigger than Love | Text |
| Children's Book of the Year Award | Younger Readers | Kate Gordon | Aster's Good, Right Things | Riveted Press |
| Children's Book of the Year Award | Picture Book | Meg McKinlay, illus. Matt Ottley | How to Make a Bird | Walker Books |
| Children's Book of the Year Award | Early Childhood | Libby Hathorn & Lisa Hathorn-Jarman, illus. Mel Pearce | No! Never! | Lothian Books |
| Children's Book of the Year Award | Eve Pownall Award for Information Books | Pamela Freeman, illus. Liz Anelli | Dry to Dry: The Seasons of Kakadu | Walker Books |
| Children's Book of the Year Award | Nan Chauncy Award | Jan Nicholls | | |
| Indie Book Awards Book of the Year | Children's | Amelia Mellor | The Grandest Bookshop in the World | Affirm Press |
| Indie Book Awards Book of the Year | Young Adult | Kate O'Donnell | This One is Ours | University of Queensland Press |
| New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards | Children's | Amelia Mellor | The Grandest Bookshop in the World | Affirm |
| New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards | Young People's | Davina Bell | The End of the World is Bigger than Love | Text |
| Queensland Literary Awards | Children's | Kirli Saunders, illustrated by Dub Leffler | Bindi | Magabala Books |
| Queensland Literary Awards | Young Adult | Cath Moore | Metal Fish, Falling Snow | Text |
| Victorian Premier's Literary Awards | Young Adult Fiction | Cath Moore | Metal Fish, Falling Snow | Text |

### Crime and Mystery
#### National

| Award | Category | Author | Title | Publisher |
| Davitt Award | Novel | Sally Hepworth | The Good Sister | Pan Macmillan |
| Davitt Award | Young adult novel | Christie Nieman | Where We Begin | Pan Macmillan |
| Davitt Award | Children's novel | Lian Tanner | A Clue for Clara | Allen & Unwin |
| Davitt Award | True crime | Louise Milligan | Witness: An Investigation into the Brutal Cost of Seeking Justice | Hachette Australia |
| Davitt Award | Debut novel | Leah Swann | Sheerwater | HarperCollins |
| Davitt Award | Readers' choice | Katherine Kovacic | The Shifting Landscape | Echo Publishing |
| Ned Kelly Award | Novel | Garry Disher | Consolation | Text Publishing |
| Ned Kelly Award | First novel | Loraine Peck | The Second Son | Penguin Books |
| Ned Kelly Award | True crime | Bret Christian | Stalking Claremont | HarperCollins |

### Poetry

| Award | Author | Title | Publisher |
| Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature | Not awarded | | |
| Anne Elder Award | Ella Jeffery | Dead Bolt | Puncher & Wattmann |
| Mary Gilmore Award | Em König | Breathing Plural | Cordite |
| Prime Minister's Literary Awards | Stephen Edgar | The Strangest Place: New and Selected Poems | Black Pepper |
| New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards | Ellen van Neerven | Throat | University of Queensland Press |
| Judith Wright Calanthe Award for a Poetry Collection | Ouyang Yu | Terminally Poetic | Ginninderra Press |
| Victorian Premier's Literary Awards | David Stavanger | Case Notes | UWA Publishing |

### Drama

| Award | Category | Author | Title | Publisher |
| New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards | Script | Laurence Billiet | Freeman | General Strike and Matchbox Pictures |
| New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards | Play | Dylan Van Den Berg | Milk | The Street Theatre |
| Victorian Premier's Literary Awards | | Angus Cerini | Wonnangatta | Sydney Theatre Company |

### 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 | Julia Baird | Phosphorescence | Random House |
| Indie Book Awards Book of the Year | Illustrated Non-Fiction | Lauren Camilleri & Sophia Kaplan | Plantopedia | Smith Street Books |
| National Biography Award | Biography | Cassandra Pybus | Truganini: Journey Through the Apocalypse | Allen & Unwin |
| New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards | Non-Fiction | Kate Fullagar | The Warrior, the Voyager, and the Artist: Three Lives in an Age of Empire | Yale University Press |
| New South Wales Premier's History Awards | Australian History | Grace Karskens | People of the River: Lost worlds of early Australia | Allen & Unwin |
| New South Wales Premier's History Awards | Community and Regional History | Matthew Colloff | Landscapes of Our Hearts: Reconciling people and environment | Thames & Hudson |
| New South Wales Premier's History Awards | General History | Luke Keogh | The Wardian Case: How a simple box moved plants and changed the world | The University of Chicago Press |
| Queensland Literary Awards | Non-Fiction | Luke Stegemann | Amnesia Road: Landscape, violence and memory | NewSouth Publishing |
| Victorian Premier's Literary Awards | Non-Fiction | Paddy Manning | Body Count: How Climate Change is Killing Us | Simon & Schuster |

## 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)