Australian Literature

As a modest-sized nation, Australia has a modest number of literary works and authors who've achieved worldwide acclaim. Popular internationally or merely in Australia are:

Authors

Graeme Base, who is both an author and an illustrator. His book Animalia inspired a TV series of the same name.
Isobelle Carmody, best known for The Obernewtyn Chronicles.
Greg Egan, who puts the Hard Science back into Hard Science Fiction. Books of his with their own entries on this wiki are Quarantine and Diaspora.
Paul Jennings, who writes a lot of short stories for children. His stories usually centre around Wish Fulfillment, showing intelligent young children overcoming evil and stupid adults and bullies. He also wrote for the television series Round the Twist which was inspired by, and largely adapted from these books.
Robin Klein, the author of such teen fiction as Came Back to Show You I Could Fly and Hating Alison Ashley.
Garth Nix, a young adult author most famous for his Old Kingdom, Keys to the Kingdom, and The Seventh Tower series. Also the author of Shade's Children.
Banjo Paterson. Journalist, essayist and most famously a magnificent 'Bush Poet' from the late 19th/early 20th Century. Wrote "Waltzing Matilda" which was later set to a much older tune to become one of the most famous songs in Australia. Also wrote "The Man from Snowy River" which was made into a movie that spawned a sequel and a TV series. Some people also remember another of his poems, "Clancy of the Overflow" but only because the character crops up again in "The Man from Snowy River".
Matthew Reilly, author such novels as "Ice Station", "Temple", "Contest" and several others. Noted mostly for how action-packed his work is. Seriously, it would make Michael Bay cry.
Shaun Tan, an internationally acclaimed author and illustrator. In addition to illustrating many books including John Marsden's The Rabbits, has written and illustrated several picture books of his own, such as The Arrival, The Lost Thing and The Red Tree. In 2011, he (jointly) won an Academy Award for his part in the short film adaption of The Lost Thing.

Works

The Arrival
Books of Pellinor - a series of epic fantasy novels by Alison Croggon concerning the adventures of Maerad, The Chosen One in a typical fantasy land.
- The Naming - separate page for the first book.
The Book Thief
Bumface
Came Back to Show You I Could Fly
Deltora Quest
Diaspora
Dragon Keeper Trilogy - a series set in Ancient China chronicling the journey of a slave girl named Ping's journey with a wise dragon, named Danzi. Written by Carole Wilkinson.
A Fraction of the Whole
Hating Alison Ashley
The Messenger - its original Australian title is actually just The Messenger.
Keys to the Kingdom
Looking for Alibrandi by Melina Marchetta, which centered around an Australian-Italian teenager trying to figure out her place in the world. It is popular among young people due to accurately portraying adolescents and their behaviour, without being patronising, and is often studied in class.
The Lost Thing
Nims Island - a preteen adventure-fantasy novel by Wendy Orr, first published in 1999. Followed by a more-famous American film adaption where the main characters are American.
The Obernewtyn Chronicles
Old Kingdom
Quarantine
The Ragwitch
Ranger's Apprentice, a best-selling series by John Flanagan.
Rowan of Rin
Shade's Children
The Red Tree
The Seventh Tower
The Slap - Christos Tsiolkas's gritty urban novel set in Melbourne, following the ramifications of a man slapping someone else's child at a party. Adapted for television in 2011.
The Three Worlds Cycle an internationally best-selling eccentric and cynical fantasy by Ian Irvine.
The Tomorrow Series, by John Marsden, who is revered for his books dealing with serious teenage issues such as abuse, war, sex, cancer and mental illness.
Two Weeks With the Queen

Notable authors and/or works without pages on this wiki

Patrick White, Australia's first Nobel Prize winner for literature. Although he was born in England and prefered it to Australia (He was accused many times of un-Austalian sentiments), Australian's have a natural habit of ignoring that anyway. His works include The Tree of Man, Voss and The Eye of the Storm. Sadly not well known amoung the majority of Australians.
Peter Carey, an internationally acclaimed cynical satirist. Currently lives in the USA.
Jackie French, an author of over one hundred books for all ages. Has a slight wombat obsession.
Morris Gleitzman; an ex-pom, who uses his experiences travelling to write witty books for teens. Co-wrote two series, Wicked! and Deadly! with Paul Jennings. Also wrote Two Weeks With the Queen and Bumface, among others.
Andy Griffiths... no, not the American guy. Famous for the 'Bum/Butt Trilogy' and the Just... Series, which inspired a Canadian TV Show. Uses a lot of Toilet Humour, and the main characters are based upon him, his childhood best friend, and his family.
Thomas Keneally, famous for writing Schindler's Ark, which was adapted as Schindler's List.
Melissa Lucashenko, author of Steam Pigs, Hard Yards and Killing Darcy.
Henry Lawson. The other of Australia's great 'Bush Poets.' Worked for the same newspaper as Paterson, at the same time. The two had a rivalry, and wrote a series of poems, The Bulletin Debate, attacking each others' poetry. Less remembered today due to the more depressing tone of his works compared to Patterson's generally upbeat style.
Emily Rodda (real name: Jennifer Rowe). She's known for writing children's fantasy, such as Deltora Quest (now an anime), Rowan of Rin, Fairy Realm and Teen Powers Inc., along with writing crime fiction for adults under her own name. Some of her books was adapted to television (Finders Keeper), anime, manga and video game (Deltora Quest).
Christos Tsiolkas, an internationally acclaimed author of gritty realism. His most famous works are probably Dead Europe and The Slap.
Markus Zusak, best known for |The Messenger (to use its original publishing title; it's only known as I Am the Messenger in the USA) and The Book Thief.
It should say something about Australia that one of our most beloved children's books, The Magic Pudding, was:
- written due to a bet
- by a racist
- who made pornographic etchings.