2007 in Australian literature

This article presents a list of the historical events and publications of Australian literature during 2007.

Events

• Surrender by Sonya Hartnett, and The Book Thief by Markus Zusak are named as Honor Books in the 2007 American Library Association's Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature.^[1]
• "The Guardian" newspaper from the UK reports that Borders plans to sell its Australian stores.^[2]
• The small township of Clunes, about 20 kilometres north of Ballarat in Victoria, decides to try to set up Australia's first dedicated booktown. The first weekend event takes place on 20 May.^[3]
• AustLit (www.austlit.edu.au), the major Australian literature resource for research and teaching housed at the University of Queensland, announces the commencement of "Black Words", a literary website specialising in Australian Indigenous writers and storytellers and their works.^[4]
• Federal Education minister, Julie Bishop, announces that the Australian Government will allocate funds to A$1.5m to create a Chair of Australian Literature in an Australian university.^[5]
• Charlie Rimmer, Group Commercial Manager for Angus and Robertson bookshops, writes to a number of Australian independent publishers indicating that the bookshop chain will refuse to stock their books without compensation.^[6]
• Lonely Planet, the iconic Australian publisher of travel guides, is sold to the commercial division of the BBC in a deal reportedly worth A$200 million.^[7]
• Australia's new Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, announces a major new literary prize of $100,000 in both fiction and non-fiction categories.^[8]
• Australia-Asia Literary Award established.

Major publications

Literary fiction

• David Brooks – The Fern Tattoo
• Steven Carroll – The Time We Have Taken
• Belinda Castles – The River Baptists
• Jon Cleary – Four-Cornered Circle
• J. M. Coetzee – Diary of a Bad Year
• Matthew Condon – The Trout Opera
• Steven Conte – The Zookeeper's War
• Gregory Day – Ron McCoy's Sea of Diamonds
• Michelle de Kretser – The Lost Dog
• Nicholas Drayson – Love and the Platypus
• Karen Foxlee – The Anatomy of Wings
• Rodney Hall – Love Without Hope
• Janette Turner Hospital – Orpheus Lost
• Gail Jones – Sorry
• Mireille Juchau – Burning In
• Thomas Keneally – The Widow and Her Hero
• Malcolm Knox – Jamaica
• Christopher Koch – The Memory Room
• Colleen McCullough – Antony and Cleopatra
• Carol Lefevre – Nights in the Asylum
• Rhyll McMaster – Feather Man
• David Malouf – The Complete Stories
• Alex Miller – Landscape of Farewell
• Nicholas Shakespeare – Secrets of the Sea
• Charlotte Wood – The Children
• Jessica White – A Curious Intimacy
• Geraldine Wooller – The Seamstress

Children's and Young Adult fiction

• Alexandra Adornetto – The Shadow Thief
• Sherryl Clark – Sixth Grade Style Queen (Not!), illus by Elissa Christian
• Jackie French
  • Pharaoh: The Boy Who Conquered the Nile
  • The Shaggy Gully Times, illus by Bruce Whatley
• Scot Gardner – Gravity
• Sonya Hartnett – The Ghost's Child
• John Heffernan – Marty's Shadow
• Odo Hirsch – Amelia Dee and the Peacock Lamp
• Simmone Howell – Notes from the Teenage Underground
• Justine Larbalestier – Magic's Child
• Brigid Lowry – Tomorrow All Will Be Beautiful
• Meme McDonald – Love Like Water
• David Metzenthen
  • Black Water
  • Winning the World Cup, illus by Stephen Axelsen
• Garth Nix – Lady Friday
• Leonie Norrington – Leaving Barrumbi
• Emily Rodda – The Key to Rondo
• Scott Westerfeld – Extras
• Carole Wilkinson – Dragon Moon
• Sean Williams – The Changeling

Crime and Mystery

• Mark Abernethy – Golden Serpent
• Robert G. Barrett – The Tesla Legacy
• John Clanchy and Mark Henshaw (J.M. Calder) – And Hope to Die
• Garry Disher – Chain of Evidence
• Kathryn Fox – Skin and Bone
• Robert Gott – Amongst the Dead
• Kerry Greenwood – Trick or Treat
• Jarad Henry – Blood Sunset
• Sarah Hopkins – The Crimes of Billy Fish
• Katherine Howell – Frantic
• Gabrielle Lord – Shattered
• Shane Maloney – Sucked In
• PD Martin – Fan Mail
• Dorothy Porter – El Dorado
• Leigh Redhead – Cherry Pie
• Michael Robotham – The Night Ferry
• Steve Toltz – A Fraction of the Whole
• Chris Womersley – The Low Road

Romance

• Anna Campbell – Claiming the Courtesan
• Emma Darcy – The Billionaire's Scandalous Marriage
• Lilian Darcy – Cafe du Jour
• Kimberley Freeman – Duet
• Anna Jacobs – Tomorrow's Princess
• Melanie La'Brooy – Serendipity
• Tamara McKinley – Lands Beyond the Sea

Science Fiction and Fantasy

• David Conyers & John Sunseri – The Spiraling Worm
• Marianne de Pierres – Dark Space
• Sara Douglass – The Serpent Bride
• Lian Hearn – Heaven's Net is Wide
• Jack Heath – Remote Control
• David Kowalski – The Company of the Dead
• Karen Miller – The Riven Kingdom
• Jason Nahrung & Mil Clayton – The Darkness Within
• Ben Peek – Black Sheep: A Dystopian Novel
• Sean Williams – Saturn Returns

Drama

• Stephen Carleton – The Narcissist
• Michael Gow – Toy Symphony
• Katherine Thomson – King Tide

Poetry

• Judith Bishop – Event
• David Brooks – Urban Elegies, Sydney: Island Press (Australia)
• Lisa Gorton – Press Release
• Kathryn Lomer – Two Kinds of Silence, University of Queensland Press, ISBN 978-0-7022-3612-9
• David Malouf – Typewriter Music, winner of the 2008 Arts Queensland Judith Wright Calanthe Award
• Dorothy Porter – El Dorado
• Peter Rose – The Best Australian Poems 2007, Black Inc., ISBN 978-1-86395-417-4
• Peter Skrzynecki – Old/New World, University of Queensland Press, ISBN 978-0-7022-3586-3
• Petra White – The Incoming Tide

Non-fiction

• Janet Fife-Yeomans – Killing Jodie
• Tom Griffiths – Slicing the Silence: Voyaging to Antarctica
• Clive James – Cultural Amnesia: Notes in the Margin of My Time
• Philip Jones – Ochre and Rust: Artefacts and Encounters on Australian Frontiers
• Evan McHugh – Red Centre, Dark Heart
• Nicolas Rothwell – Another Country
• John Silvester and Andrew Rule – Underbelly: The Gangland War

Biographies

• Philip Dwyer – Napoleon: The Path To Power 1769–1799
• Kim Huynh – Where the Sea Takes Us
• Mark Kurzem – The Mascot
• Brenda Niall – Life Class: The Education of a Biographer
• Craig Sherborne – Muck
• Jeff Sparrow – Communism: A Love Story

Awards and honours

Lifetime achievement

Fiction

International

National

Children and Young Adult

International

National

Crime and Mystery

International

National

Science Fiction

Non-Fiction

Poetry

Drama

Deaths

• 1 February – Elizabeth Jolley, author (born 1923)
• 22 February – Joyce Lee, poet (born 1913)
• 2 March – David A. Myers, poet and publisher (born 1942)
• 23 May – John Croyston, poet (born 1933)
• 11 July – Glenda Adams, author (born 1939)
• 11 July – Noel Rowe, poet (born 1951)
• 1 August – Mona Brand, playwright (born 1915)
• 24 August – Philip Grundy, translator (born 1932)
• 16 October – Steve J. Spears, author and playwright (born 1951)
• 31 October – Eric Rolls, author (born 1923)
• 24 December – Jan McKemmish, author (born 1950)

See also

• Literature
• List of years in Australian literature
• List of Australian literary awards

References

Note: all references relating to awards can, or should be, found on the relevant award's page.