# 1997 in Australian literature

This article presents a list of the historical events and publications of Australian literature during 1997.

## Events

* David Foster won the Miles Franklin Award for The Glade Within the Grove

## Major publications
### Novels

* John Birmingham — The Tasmanian Babes Fiasco
* James Bradley — Wrack
* Peter Carey — Jack Maggs
* J. M. Coetzee — Boyhood: Scenes from Provincial Life
* Marele Day — Lambs of God
* Luke Davies — Candy
* Delia Falconer — The Service of Clouds
* Richard Flanagan — The Sound of One Hand Clapping
* Elizabeth Jolley — Lovesong
* Rod Jones — Nightpictures
* Melissa Lucashenko — Steam Pigs
* Colleen McCullough — Caesar
* Madeleine St John — The Essence of the Thing
* Tim Winton — Blueback
* Alexis Wright — Plains of Promise

### Children's and young adult fiction

* Damien Broderick and Rory Barnes — Zones
* Kim Caraher — Up a Gum Tree
* Isobelle Carmody
** Darkfall
** Greylands
* Gary Crew and Michael O'Hara — The Blue Feather
* Sonya Hartnett — Princes
* Catherine Jinks — Eye to Eye
* Garth Nix — Shade's Children
* Sarah Walker — The Year of Freaking Out
* Tim Winton — Lockie Leonard, Legend

### Science fiction and fantasy

* Damien Broderick & David G. Hartwell (edited) — Centaurus: The Best of Australian Science Fiction
* Sara Douglass
** Sinner
** Threshold
* Greg Egan
** Diaspora
** "Reasons to Be Cheerful"
* Kim Wilkins — The Infernal

### Crime

* Jon Cleary — A Different Turf
* Peter Corris
** The Reward
** The Washington Club
* Garry Disher — Fallout
* Kerry Greenwood — Raisins and Almonds

### Poetry

* Peter Boyle — The Blue Cloud of Crying
* Alison Croggon — The Blue Gate
* Philip Hodgins — Selected Poems
* Jill Jones — The Book of Possibilities
* Emma Lew — The Wild Reply
* Rhyll McMaster — Chemical Bodies: A diary of probable events, 1994–1997

### Drama

* Hilary Bell — Wolf Lullaby
* Leah Purcell and Scott Rankin — Box the Pony
* David Williamson — After the Ball

### Non-fiction

* Mark Raphael Baker — The Fiftieth Gate
* Barbara Blackman — Glass after Glass
* Lynne Hume — Witchcraft and Paganism in Australia
* Roberta Sykes — Snake Cradle

## Awards and honours

* Morris West AO "for service to literature"
* Barbara Buick AM "for service to women, particularly through Equal Employment Opportunity Tribunal in Western Australia and to librarianship and publishing, particularly through the promotion of children's literature"
* Ken Goodwin (academic) AM "for service to literature, art administration and education"
* Manfred Jurgensen AM "for service to literature as a novelist, poet and critic, and as founder of the journal Outrider"
* Edna Laing OAM "for service to the arts and literature through the Creativity Centre, Brisbane"
* Rodney Lumer OAM "for service to the arts through the promotion and publication of works by Australian playwrights"
* Sydney John Trigellis-Smith OAM "for service to military history as a researcher, author and publisher of several unit histories of campaigns of World War II"
* Albert Ullin OAM "for service to the promotion of children's literature in Australia and overseas"

### Lifetime achievement

| Award | Author |
| Christopher Brennan Award | Not awarded |
| Patrick White Award | Vivian Smith |

### Literary

| Award | Author | Title | Publisher |
| The Age Book of the Year Award | Peter Carey | Jack Maggs | University of Queensland Press |
| ALS Gold Medal | Robert Dessaix | Night Letters | Macmillan Books |
| Colin Roderick Award | Peter Edwards | A Nation at War | Allen & Unwin |
| Nita Kibble Literary Award | Helen Garner | True Stories: Selected Non-Fiction | Text Publishing |

### Fiction
#### International

| Award | Category | Author | Title | Publisher |
| Commonwealth Writers' Prize | Best Novel, SE Asia and South Pacific region | Sue Woolfe | Leaning Towards Infinity | Random House |

#### National

| Award | Author | Title | Publisher |
| Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature | Not awarded | | |
| The Age Book of the Year Award | Peter Carey | Jack Maggs | University of Queensland Press |
| The Australian/Vogel Literary Award | Eva Sallis | Hiam | Allen and Unwin |
| Miles Franklin Award | David Foster | The Glade Within the Grove | Vintage |
| New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards | Robert Drewe | The Drowner | Pan Macmillan Australia |
| Victorian Premier's Literary Awards | Robert Drewe | The Drowner | Pan Macmillan Australia |

### Crime and Mystery
#### National

| Award | Category | Author | Title | Publisher |
| Ned Kelly Award |
| Ned Kelly Award | Novel | Shane Maloney | The Brush-Off | Text Publishing |
| Ned Kelly Award | First novel | Peter Temple | Bad Debts | HarperCollins |
| Ned Kelly Award | First novel | Peter Doyle | Get Rich Quick | Mandarin Publishing |
| Ned Kelly Award | Lifetime Achievement | Alan Yates | | |

### Poetry

| Award | Author | Title | Publisher |
| Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature | Not awarded | | |
| The Age Book of the Year Award | Emma Lew | The Wild Reply | Black Pepper |
| The Age Book of the Year Award | Peter Porter | Dragons in their Pleasant Palaces | Oxford University Press |
| Anne Elder Award | Morgan Yasbincek | Night Reversing | Fremantle Arts Centre Press |
| Grace Leven Prize for Poetry | Geoffrey Lehmann | Collected Poems | Heinemann |
| Mary Gilmore Award | Morgan Yasbincek | Night Reversing | Fremantle Arts Centre Press |
| Victorian Premier's Literary Awards | Les Murray | Subhuman Redneck Poems | Duffy and Snellgrove |

### Children and Young Adult

| Award | Category | Author | Title | Publisher |
| Victorian Premier's Prize for Young Adult Fiction | | Catherine Jinks | Pagan's Scribe | Omnibus Books |

### Non-fiction

| Award | Category | Author | Title | Publisher |
| Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature | Not awarded | | |
| The Age Book of the Year Award | Non-Fiction | Roberta Sykes | Snake Cradle | Allen and Unwin |
| National Biography Award | Biography | Not awarded | | |

## Deaths

A list, ordered by date of death (and, if the date is either unspecified or repeated, ordered alphabetically by surname) of deaths in 1997 of Australian literary figures, authors of written works or literature-related individuals follows, including year of birth.
* 14 February — Marian Eldridge, short story writer, poet and book reviewer (born 1936)
* 16 February — Gilbert Mant, journalist and writer (born 1902)
* 8 March — Rupert Lockwood, journalist and author (born 1908)
* 14 April — Kit Denton, writer and broadcaster (born 1928)
* 8 June — George Turner, writer and critic, best known for science fiction novels (born 1916)
* 11 June — Jill Neville, novelist, playwright and poet (born 1932)
* 16 June — Dal Stivens, novelist and short story writer (born 1911)
* 19 June — David Denholm, author and historian who published fiction under the pseudonym David Forrest and history under his own name (born 1924)
* 1 July — David Martin, novelist, poet, playwright, journalist, editor, literary reviewer and lecturer (born 1915)
* 2 August — Joyce Dingwell, writer of more than 80 romance novels for Mills & Boon from 1931 to 1986, who also wrote under the pseudonym of Kate Starr (born 1909)
Unknown date
* Roger Bennett, actor and playwright (born 1948)