An Australian Canon – Patrick White Catalogue

AN AUSTRALIAN CANON

Jeffrey Smart, Truck and trailer approaching a city (1973)

While this website is devoted to our Nobel Laureate, Australia’s literary history is a bowerbird’s nest of gems, quirks, and downright oddities. Such a list as this can never be complete or exhaustive, especially not as the 21st century has gifted us with countless new talents which cannot yet be properly assessed. There has perhaps never been a better time to be a lover of Aussie lit, but it will also take a while to understand which younger writers will leave a legacy.

In the meantime, I have chosen to keep my commentary brief but provide a variety of works for consumption. Some of these artists are literary luminaries; some are neglected gems; some wrote one individual important work; some are plain schlocky fun while others were epoch-shattering statements; some are problematic, but all present compelling insights into Australia.

Nothing is implied by appearance or lack thereof on this list. My aim is to encourage wide reading, and perhaps for others to devote their time to chronicling the works of a legendary author, as I have chosen to do with PW.

It’s telling that only a handful of books on this list were published before 1920. While Australia’s pre-War cultural history is endlessly fascinating, the story of our literature is really a story of the last 100 years. I welcome any contentions about what I have missed!

The most notable authors are in bold. See also the Bibliography page for non-fiction books on Australian writing.

Colonial Days

Watkin Tench (1758 – 1833): Sydney’s First Four Years (1793), a fascinating insight into the very beginning of Australian colonisation – the story of the people who spent seven months on ships to move to a country further away than most of them could ever have imagined, a land unlike anything they had ever known.
James Tucker (1808 – 1888): Ralph Rashleigh (published 1952)
‘Rolf Boldrewood’ (Thomas Alexander Browne) (1826 -1915): Robbery Under Arms (1882)
Rachel Henning (1826 – 1914): Letters (1952)
Ernest Giles (1835 – 1897): Australia Twice Traversed (1889)
Joseph Furphy (“Tom Collins”) (1843 – 1912): Such is Life (1903)
Marcus Clarke (1846 – 1881): For the Term of His Natural Life (1874): a colonial convict classic of the serialised fiction genre so popular during the Victorian era.
E.J. Banfield (1852 – 1923): Confessions of a Beachcomber (1908)
Barbara Baynton (1857 – 1929): Bush Studies (1902), Human Toll (1907): possibly the most important female Australian writer of her generation, Baynton revises and recentres the official narrative of the Australian bush, from a woman’s perspective.
Henry Lawson (1867 – 1922): Joe Wilson and His Mates (1901): still a classic of the “hardship” genre, Lawson was renowned for his honest tales about bush life, passionately nationalistic but determinedly opposed to the heroic and adventurous (and romantic) bush ballad.

The Federation Generation

Henry Handel (Ethel) Richardson (1870 – 1946): Fortunes of Richard Mahony trilogy (1930): old-fashioned even in its time, Richardson’s trilogy was the first Australian epic of real literary quality.
Ethel Turner (1870 – 1958): Seven Little Australians (1894) the first true classic of Australian children’s literature, this remains iconic after 130 years.
Christopher Brennan (1870 – 1932): Poems 1913 (1914)
Jeannie [Mrs. Aeneas] Gunn (1870 – 1961): We of the Never-Never (1907)
Louis Stone (1871 – 1935): Jonah (1911)
CJ Dennis (1876 – 1938): Songs of a Sentimental Bloke (1915)
May Gibbs (1877 – 1969): The Complete Adventures of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie (1918): Gibbs’ exquisite illustrations give new life to the Australian bush, creating magic that still entrances young children.
Stella Miles Franklin (1879 – 1954): My Brilliant Career (1901), Some Everyday Folk and Dawn (1909): Although her name adorns the most respected Australian literary award (founded with her bequest), Franklin was a writer of her time, a complex figure who was not always inspiring in her personal choices. Still, this is her most well-known novel and an intriguing, honest look into the life of a young woman at the end of the 19th century.
Norman Lindsay (1879 – 1969): The Magic Pudding (1918)
Frederic Manning (1882 – 1935): Poems (1910), Her Privates We (1929)
Katharine Susannah Prichard (1883 – 1969): The Pioneers (1915), Black Opal (1918), Coonardoo (1929), Haxby’s Circus (1930)
Jack McLaren (1884 – 1954): My Crowded Solitude (1926): McLaren’s reflections on his life living in on an island with its native people, still has a beauty and an ambience for those of us who thrill for stories of solitude and the Australian wilderness.
Vance Palmer (1885 – 1959): The Passage (1930)
Nettie Palmer (1885 – 1964): Fourteen Years (1948)
Myrtle Rose White (1888 – 1961): No Roads Go By (1932)
Arthur Upfield (1890 – 1964): The Bony series, from The Barrakee Mystery (1929) onward.

The Wartime Generation

Lesbia Harford (1891 – 1927): Poems (1941)
Martin Boyd (1893 – 1972): Lucinda Brayford (1946), The Cardboard Crown (1952); When Blackbirds Sing (1962): the most stuffy and pretentious of Australian writers, Boyd’s work is unlikely to come back into fashion, but he remains the supreme chronicler of the Australian upper classes.
Frank Dalby Davison (1893 – 1970): Man-Shy (1931), Dusty (1946)
H.V. Evatt (1894 – 1965): Rum Rebellion (1938)
A.B. Facey (1894 – 1982): A Fortunate Life (1981)
M. Barnard Eldershaw (1897/1897 – 1956/1987): A House is Built (1929); The Glasshouse (1936); Plaque with Laurel (1937); Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow (1947): Marjorie Barnard and Flora Eldershaw, who wrote as a pair, straddled two eras. Their writing is old-fashioned sometimes (especially in the epic A House is Built) and yet – in the later novels – clearly tempted by the modernism which attracted many Aussie writers of the 1930s.
P.L. Travers (1899 – 1996): Mary Poppins (1934) et al.
Ernestine Hill (1899 – 1972): The Great Australian Loneliness (1937)
Xavier Herbert (1901 – 1984): Capricornia (1939); Poor Fellow My Country (1975): a supremely frustrating man, Xavier Herbert’s two important novels have an unprecedented sense of scope, and his outright anger for the disadvantaged – be they poor, women, Jewish, or especially Indigenous – rings off every page. He could be more subtle, more sensitive, and more open to listening rather than arguing, but Herbert’s place in our history is assured – and not just because Poor Fellow My Country is the longest Australian novel ever written!
Eleanor Dark (1901 – 1985): Prelude to Christopher (1934); Return to Coolami (1936); The Timeless Land (1941); Storm of Time (1948): Dark remains an underappreciated voice for her sensitive and experimental writing; her Timeless Land trilogy, more traditional historical lit, goes back to 1788 to explore the arrival of the English conquerors from both points of view.
Christina Stead (1902 – 1983): Seven Poor Men of Sydney (1934), The Salzburg Tales (1934); The Beauties and the Furies (1936); The Man Who Loved Children (1940); For Love Alone (1944); Letty Fox: Her Luck (1946); The Puzzleheaded Girl (1967), The Little Hotel (1973), I’m Dying Laughing (1986): the greatest rival to White for “most significant Australian literary voice of the 20th century”. Stead is never easy, but from her first book to her last she is utterly captivating and unforgiving.
Dymphna Cusack (1902 – 1981) and Florence James (1902 – 1993): Come in Spinner (1950)
Lennie Lower (1903 – 1947): Here’s Luck (1930)
John Morrison (1904 – 1998): Stories of the Waterfront (1984)
Mena Calthorpe (1905 – 1996): The Dyehouse (1961)
W.E.H. Stanner (1905 – 1981): After the Dreaming (1968)
Tom Cole (1906 – 1995): Hell West and Crooked (1988)
A.D. Hope (1907 – 2000): The Cave and the Spring (1965), Native Companions (1974), Collected Poems (1992): famously referred to as “the 20th century’s greatest 18th-century poet”, Hope was a vital critic (despite being something of a villain from this website’s vantage point, for his famously cruel review of The Tree of Man!). His poetry was, as implied, steadfastly traditional, but at his best he’s vivid and thoughtful.
Nino Culotta [John O’Grady] (1907 – 1981): They’re a Weird Mob (1957)
Gavin Casey (1907 – 1964): Short-Shift Saturday (1942), Snowball (1958)

The Builders

Alan Moorehead (1910 – 1983): Cooper’s Creek (1963), The Fatal Impact (1966)
Dal Stivens (1911 – 1997): Jimmy Brockett (1951); A Horse of Air (1970): an almost entirely forgotten author, despite winning the Miles Franklin in 1970. Stivens’ embrace of the Australian bush narrative, from a rather different perspective, warrants a mention here.
Judah Waten (1911 – 1985): Alien Son (1952), Distant Land (1964)
Hal Porter (1911 – 1984): Selected Stories (1971)
Sidney J. Baker (1912 – 1976): The Australian Language (1945): Baker’s landmark volume, in its expanded edition, is fascinating just to dip into. On a level unprecedented at the time, he challenged the orthodoxy of the first half of the 20th century that Australia simply had no culture, and was clearly a deformed offshoot of the British “norm”.
Kylie Tennant (1912 – 1988): Tiburon (1934), The Battlers (1941); Ride on Stranger (1943); The Honey Flow (1956), All the Proud Tribesmen (1959): one of the early social realist writers, Tennant was an important voice of mid-20th century lit, a serious award contender for her novels. She has retreated now somewhat, as her style – although strong – is not as overwhelming as White or Stead, and not quite as significant as her more important contemporaries. But Tennant is still a rewarding writer, especially her fascination for chronicling the great social changes that took place before and after WWII.
Patrick White (1912 – 1990): obviously everything.
George Johnston (1912 – 1970): The Far Road (1962), My Brother Jack (1964)
John Blight (1913 – 1995): A Beachcomber’s Diary (1964), My Beachcombing Days (1968)
(Kenneth) Seaforth Mackenzie (1913 – 1955): The Young Desire It (1931)
Mary Durack (1913 – 1994): Kings in Grass Castles (1959)
Russel Ward (1914 – 1995): The Australian Legend (1958)
Peter Cowan (1914 – 2002), The Tins and Other Stories (1973)
Charles Manning Clark (1915 – 1991): A History of Australia (6 volumes, 1962 – 1987): one of the most important historians of Australia, Clark’s epic history is famously ideological, defiantly biased, and exquisitely poetic in its approach. If you can accept all of the above, you will find much here to learn.
David Campbell (1915 – 1979): Poems (1973)
T.A.G. (Tom) Hungerford (1915 – 2011): The Ridge and the River (1952)
Judith Wright (1915 – 2000): The Moving Image (1946), Birds (1962), Selected Poems (1963), Because I Was Invited (1975): a contender for the most important Australian poet of her generation, there is not much to say about Wright but to urge you to read her.
Don Charlwood (1915 – 2012): All the Green Year (1965)
Jessica Anderson (1916 – 2010): The Commandant (1975), Tirra Lirra by the River (1978): Anderson’s first novel was published when she was 47, but her sensitive and direct style attracted attention quickly. Tirra Lirra is justly her most famous novel, but she is generally rewarding.
Ruth Park (1917 – 2010): The Harp in the South (1948); Poor Man’s Orange (1949); The Muddle-Headed Wombat (1963), Swords and Crowns and Rings (1977), Playing Beatie Bow (1980): an easily readable writer, Park is a good starting point for teenagers wanting to read some older OzLit. But her explorations of the lives of poorer Sydneysiders are also poignant and engaging for all.
D’Arcy Niland (1917 – 1967): The Shiralee (1955), The Big Smoke (1959)
Jack Davis (1917 – 2000): No Sugar (1986)
Sumner Locke Elliott (1917 – 1991): Careful He Might Hear You (1963)
Frank J. Hardy (1917 – 1994): But the Dead Are Many (1975)
Amy Witting [Joan Fraser] (1918 – 2001): The Visit (1977), I for Isobel (1990): with the exception of a few short stories, Witting’s career began in earnest when she retired from teaching in her late 50s. I’m not sure that Witting’s slim output will remain in the Australian canon, but she is an insightful and intelligent writer who is well worth seeking out.
Faith Bandler (1918 – 2015): Wacvie (1977)
Olga Masters (1919 – 1986): A Long Time Dying (1985); Amy’s Children (1987): a fairly traditional author who started late and was cut short by her death from a brain tumour at 67. A Long Time Dying, which conjures up a small town in the 1930s, is especially tautly written.
“Ern Malley” (1918 – 1943): The Darkening Ecliptic (1944)
Oodgeroo Noonuccal (1920 – 1993): My People (1970): one of the first Indigenous Australian writers to be given any public recognition, Noonuccal’s poetry remains iconic, and most people under a certain age will know her work from their highschool studies. There is little more to say!

Gwen Harwood (1920 – 1995): Poems (1963), Poems Volume Two (1968): a singular voice in Australian poetry, Harwood was also a gifted mimic. She used this skill to trick and compete with the “boys’ club” which challenged her when she began publishing poetry in the 1940s.
Rosemary Dobson (1920 – 2012): Collected Poems (1991)
Colin Thiele (1920 – 2006): Storm Boy (1963), The Fire in the Stone (1973)
Robin Dalton (1920 – 2022): Aunts Up the Cross (1965)
Donald Horne (1921 – 2005): The Lucky Country (1964), The Education of Young Donald (1967)
Patricia Wrightson (1921 – 2010): The Nargun and the Stars (1970)
Ivan Southall (1921 – 2008): Hills End (1962), Ash Road (1965), To the Wild Sky (1967)
Ray Lawler (1921 – ): Summer of the Seventeenth Doll (1956)
Elizabeth Jolley (1923 – 2007): The Newspaper of Claremont Street (1981); Mr Scobie’s Riddle (1983), Milk and Honey (1984), Fellow Passengers: Collected Stories (1997): Jolley, for me, is something of an acquired taste, and I think she has some duds in her oeuvre, to be honest with you! But at her best, she offers a fever-dream understanding of life, stories of people slightly on the fringes, surprising with her twists and turns. Thankfully she has been well-integrated into the canon.
Dorothy Hewett (1923 – 2002): Selected Poems (1991)
Charmian Clift (1923 – 1969): Mermaid Singing (1958), The World of Charmian Clift (1970)
Criena Rohan [Deirdre Cash] (1924 – 1963): The Delinquents (1962), Down by the Dockside (1963): Rohan’s two novels trumpet a voice lost far, far too early. The social realism and sensitive portrayals of her outsider characters are instantly captivating. A truly sad loss to Australian letters.
Hugh Stretton (1924 – 2015): Ideas for Australian Cities (1970)
Thea Astley (1925 – 2004): Girl with a Monkey (1958), A Descant for Gossips (1960); The Slow Natives (1965); A Kindness Cup (1974); An Item from the Late News (1982), Reaching Tin River (1990); Drylands (1999): a supremely important voice, and Queensland’s most notable chronicler to date. Astley’s work is surprising and fierce in her earlier years; the more languid later works, however, benefit from her refined tone. A true raconteur and individual, Astley’s legacy is (hopefully) assured.
S.A. Wakefield (1927 – 2009): Bottersnikes and Gumbles (4 volumes, 1967 – 1989): a children’s classic, in which the spiky garbage-dump-dwelling Bottersnikes cause havoc for our squishy, intelligent heroes. With adorable illustrations by PW’s old pal Desmond Digby, these should be mandatory for all children!

The Not-So-Silent Generation

David Ireland (1927 – 2022): The Chantic Bird (1968), The Unknown Industrial Prisoner (1971); The Glass Canoe (1976): I’m not sure I can conjure up affection for Ireland’s novels, but he should be read at least once by any OzLit lover for his experimental, wide-ranging books. Whereas I respect the “serious lit” works of Gerald Murnane, and I approach with an open mind those of Brian Castro, I find myself enthralled during the experience of reading with Ireland, even if I’m often unable to explain my feelings afterward.
Elizabeth Harrower (1928 – 2020): Down in the City (1957); The Long Prospect (1958), The Catherine Wheel (1960); The Watch Tower (1966): Harrower’s quietly traumatic tales evoke that British generation of Muriel Spark and Penelope Fitzgerald, although her characters are often colder – or at least more inured to circumstances – than theirs.
Bruce Beaver (1928 – 2004): New and Selected Poems (1991)
Kenneth Cook (1929 – 1987): Wake in Fright (1961): Cook is famous primarily for this one book, but what a book. The Australian outback and its people have never been more terrifying.
Peter Porter (1929 – 2010): The Rest on the Flight: Selected Poems (2010)
Brenda Niall (b.1930): Seven little billabongs: the world of Ethel Turner and Mary Grant Bruce (1979), Martin Boyd: A Life (2004 edition), Mannix (2015), My Accidental Career (2022)
Geoffrey Blainey (b. 1930): The Tyranny of Distance (1966), Triumph of the Nomads (1975), A Land Half Won (1982), Captain Cook’s Epic Voyage (2020): Blainey (at least in his written works) has been a man of boundless insight about the Australian condition, especially in regard to the searing impact of that geographic distance from our Western cousins, but also about the ancient lives of the First Australians.
Mena Abdullah (b. 1930): The Time of the Peacock (1965, with Ray Mathew)
Shirley Hazzard (1931 – 2016): The Bay of Noon (1970), The Transit of Venus (1980); The Great Fire (2003): one of the few Australian writers of her generation to break through to the American market, Hazzard’s major novels reveal a calculating mind and an eye rich in colour and hue.
Christopher J. Koch (1932 – 2013): The Year of Living Dangerously (1978), The Doubleman (1986), Highways to a War (1995): Koch wrote several commanding pieces although his stories of man-woman and white-Asian relations can grate a little to my generation (drawn from life, though they were). Still, he might just be our best war novelist, and part of a wealth of (largely forgotten) Australian novels set in Asia which blossomed during the 1970s and ’80s.
Kevin Gilbert (1933 – 1993): Because a White Man’ll Never Do It (1973)
Inga Clendinnen (1934 – 2016): Dancing with Strangers: Europeans and Australians at First Contact (2003): an insightful academic historian, the late Inga Clendinnen published her most important works of Australian non-fiction during a peak of the so-called “Culture Wars”, in which progressives and conservatives battled over the impact of white Australians on the continent’s First Peoples, and of whether that impact was still felt. The Wars rage on, but at least we have Clendinnen’s no-nonsense approach to guide us.
David Malouf (b. 1934): Johnno (1975); An Imaginary Life (1978); Harland’s Half Acre (1984), The Great World (1990); Remembering Babylon (1993); The Conversations at Curlew Creek (1996), Ransom (2009): Malouf was the first Australian writer (for adults) I fell in love with as a teenager, and his early prose excited PW too. Malouf is elegant, keenly aware of the lives of social outsiders, and his canvases are wide even if the subject may sometimes seem small.
Chris Wallace-Crabbe (b. 1934): The Amorous Cannibal (1985)
Randolph Stow (1935 – 2010): To the Islands (1958, revised 1982), Tourmaline (1963); Visitants (1979), The Suburbs of Hell (1984): a genuine original. The shy and unassuming Stow was haunted by his early years working with native peoples in Australia and New Guinea, and held these stories in his head during his later life, living largely unnoticed in an English village. His absorbing, spiralling prose has held me spellbound on multiple readings. Never seeming to make peace with his eerie genius, Stow wrote very little in the second half of his life – to our detriment.
Thomas Keneally (b. 1935): Bring Larks and Heroes (1967), The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1972), Gossip from the Forest (1975), Schindler’s Ark (1982): Keneally is a writer always writing, and his prolific output is the proof! His subject matter and style are more populist than most on his list (I suspect some lit graduates will turn up their noses at his inclusion) but Bring Larks and Heroes is a (deeply violent) compelling examination of the convict era, while Gossip from the Forest vibrantly imagines the circumstances of the end of WWI. Both are engaging reads, and after that you can decide whether to delve into his ever-expanding back-catalogue!

Rodney Hall (b. 1935): Just Relations (1982); Kisses of the Enemy (1987), Captivity Captive (1988); The Second Bridegroom (1991); The Grisly Wife (1993); The Island in the Mind (1996), A Stolen Season (2018): I opened a Rodney Hall during the early days of the covid pandemic, and he quickly became my constant companion. Surely one of the most compelling voices of his generation, Hall’s poetic prose engages elegantly with Australian history and culture. Start with the Yandilli trilogy and then move on to his epic-size works.
Alex Miller (b. 1936): The Ancestor Game (1992), Journey to the Stone Country (2002), Prochownik’s Dream (2005), Coal Creek (2013): if I’m brutally honest, I don’t think Miller will be widely read in a few generations’ time. But that’s okay. He is a compelling, assured, engaging writer, who can command audiences across genres. Sometimes the “now” of a writer is what’s important.
Doris Pilkington (1937 – 2014): Rabbit-Proof Fence (1996)
Les Murray (1938 – 2019): Translations from the Natural World (1993), The Biplane Houses (2006)
Henry Reynolds (b. 1938): The Other Side of the Frontier (1981), Why Weren’t We Told? (1999)
Robert Hughes (1938 – 2012): The Shock of the New (1980), The Fatal Shore (1986): Hughes’ grim history volume, The Fatal Shore, is not an easy read but it’s the closest experience to being a convict! And his articulate, saucy approaches to culture and art made him a crucial figure in late 20th century criticism. The TV series of The Shock of the New – available on Youtube – remains a modern classic, even if I sometimes find myself violently disagreeing with him.
Frank Moorhouse (b. 1938): The Americans, Baby: A Discontinuous Narrative of Stories and Fragments (1972), The Electrical Experience (1974), The Coca Cola Kid (1982), Grand Days (1993): one of our most important short story writers, Moorhouse has also been a powerful force for championing and expanding Australian literature over the years. I’m not hugely keen on his novels myself, but you may feel differently!
Mudrooroo (Colin Johnson) (1938 – 2019): Wild Cat Falling (1965)
Gerald Murnane (b. 1939): Tamarisk Row (1974), A Lifetime on Clouds (1976), The Plains (1982); Landscape with Landscape (1987); Inland (1988), Barley Patch (2009): often talked about as Australia’s next contender for the Nobel Prize (50 years after PW became our first), Murnane’s elliptical novels, filled with outback imagery and questions about the nature of culture and artistic perception, will intrigue you or bedevil you, depending on your tolerance level.
Clive James (1939 – 2019): Unreliable Memoirs (1980), Cultural Amnesia (2007), Opal Sunset: Selected Poems (2009), Dante’s Divine Comedy (translator, 2013)
John Pilger (b. 1939): A Secret Country (1980)
Germaine Greer (b. 1939): The Female Eunuch (1970): she’s gone rather off-piste in recent years, if we’re honest, but there’s something satisfying about knowing that one of the most important texts in feminism was written by an Australian, and a fierce critic at that.
John Bell (b. 1940): On Shakespeare (2011)
J.M. Coetzee (b. 1940): One of the great novelists of his generation, I feel somewhat uncomfortable adding Coetzee here, since he was in his 60s when he moved to Australia. Still, he clearly identifies strongly with his adopted country and I’d feel churlish to ignore him. His pre-Aussie novels Waiting for the Barbarians (1980), Life and Times of Michael K (1983) and Disgrace (1999) are essential reading, as is his ‘Australian’ novel Elizabeth Costello (2003).
Murray Bail (b. 1941): Homesickness (1980), Eucalyptus (1998): I don’t like Bail as much as the establishment likes Bail. Homesickness, however, is a true original and a key insight into his process; Eucalyptus is the one to follow it with if you remain interested.
Roger McDonald (b. 1941): 1915: A Novel (1979)
Beverley Farmer (1941 – 2018): Milk (1985), A Body of Water (1990)
Helen Garner (b. 1942): Monkey Grip (1977), Cosmo Cosmolino (1992), Joe Cinque’s Consolation (2004), The Spare Room (2008), This House of Grief (2014): Garner is one of the most varied writers of her generation, equally at home in fiction and non-fiction, almost always controversial but somehow able to remain on our good side. As she has entered her older years, Garner has been loudly fêted in the book world, and I think her work will remain on shelves for years to come.
Peter Corris (1942 – 2018): The Dying Trade (1982)
David Williamson (b. 1942): The Removalists (1972), Don’s Party (1973), The Club (1977)
Peter Carey (b. 1943): Bliss (1981), Illywhacker (1985), Oscar and Lucinda (1988); True History of the Kelly Gang (2000): a powerhouse writer who embodies the values of the generation after PW. His novels are mind-bending, epic, playful, and self-consciously literary, and from the start he has easily traversed the divide between popular and serious fiction. To me, his 1980s and 1990s novels are his strongest output.
Robert Drewe (b. 1943): The Savage Crows (1976), Our Sunshine (1991)
Robert Dessaix (b. 1944): Night Letters (1996)
David Foster (b. 1944): The Pure Land (1974); Moonlite (1981); The Glade Within the Grove (1996): I remain disappointed that the quirky, chameleonic Foster is not highly regarded in this country. Perhaps it’s his name’s similarity to David Foster Wallace? Perhaps (I suspect) it’s that he’s too revisionist and anarchic to appeal to conservative critics while his chosen lifestyle – a property in the country – and lack of interest in the often self-laudatory circuit of writers festivals and podcasts mean that he isn’t “in” with progressive critics either. Nevertheless, Foster recreates the idea of the Australian storyteller into his own creation, always deeply weird but also captivating.
John Foster (1944 – 1994): Take Me to Paris, Johnny (1993)
Ted Prior (b. 1945): Grug series (1979 et al)
Peter Temple (1946 – 2018): The Broken Shore (2005), Truth (2009): an elegant crime fiction novelist, Temple is best known for his Jack Irish stories, but it is his final two novels which will ensure his legacy. Both nominated for the Miles Franklin Award (Truth won), these are sophisticated, powerfully atmospheric pieces.
Drusilla Modjeska (b. 1946): Stravinsky’s Lunch (1999), The Mountain (2012)
Mem Fox (b. 1946): Possum Magic (1983), Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge (1984)
Trevor Shearston (b. 1946): Game (2013), Hare’s Fur (2019)

The Boomers

David Marr (b. 1947): Barwick (1980), Patrick White: A Life (1991), My Country: Stories, Essays & Speeches (2018): it’s perhaps a little self-serving to put Marr on this list, since his research underpins this entire website, but he is also one of country’s pre-eminent voices on cultural subjects. Whenever his name appears on a panel, a podcast, or an article of any kind, one knows it will be worthwhile.
Peter Kocan (b. 1947): The Treatment and the Cure (1984)
William Nagle (1947 – 2002): The Odd Angry Shot (1975)
Amanda Lohrey (b. 1947): The Morality of Gentlemen (1985), Vertigo: A Novella (2008), The Labyrinth (2020): Lohrey has been writing for decades but remained a largely unknown presence outside of literary circles – hence her winning of the Patrick White Award in 2012. Lohrey’s day seems to have come, however, with more attention in recent years, culminating in the Miles Franklin Award in 2021. I only recently discovered her so will have more to say here in future.
Jennifer Rowe (b. 1948): Grim Pickings (1987), Lamb to the Slaughter (1995): Rowe played a key role in my childhood for her many children’s books, published under the name Emily Rodda. But as a youth I also lived for her six-volume crime fiction series starring the lovably scrappy ABC researcher, Verity Birdwood. Her books are highly reminiscent of “Golden Age” detective novels, with a set formula and a giddily traditional approach to leaving clues – yet Rowe’s mischievous mind remains several steps ahead of the reader at all times. These books are all long out of print, but if you can find them, and that’s your cup of tea, you won’t be sorry.
Dorothy Johnston (b. 1948): Maralinga, My Love (1988)
Joan London (b. 1948): Gilgamesh (2001), The Golden Age (2014)
Steven Carroll (b. 1949): Glenroy series: The Art of the Engine Driver (2001) and on: Carroll’s six-volume series has quite a cult following, as does his current series drawing inspiration from T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets. I’m not a Carroll acolyte, but he is a punctilious author who deserves to be taken seriously at present, as we start to consider the legacy of our older generation of writers.
Robyn Davidson (b. 1950): Tracks (1980)
Brian Castro (b. 1950): Birds of Passage (1983), Shanghai Dancing (2003)
Alexis Wright (b. 1950): Carpentaria (2006), The Swan Book (2013), Praiseworthy (2023): Wright’s two major novels combine Indigenous methods of storytelling with the manner of the Anglo epic. With my limited interest in speculative fiction, I preferred Carpentaria, but The Swan Book is the easier of the two. My hope is that Wright has much more to offer, as we come to understand worlds so close and yet tantalisingly far.
Louis Nowra (b. 1950): The Golden Age (1989), Summer of the Aliens (1992), Cosi (1992)
Kate Grenville (b. 1950): Lilian’s Story (1984), The Secret River (2005), The Lieutenant (2007), Sarah Thornhill (2011), A Room Made of Leaves (2020): Grenville’s historical lit has made her one of the most recognised names in contemporary Australian fiction, so I don’t need to expound upon her virtues. If you haven’t read her, what are you waiting for?
John Marsden (b. 1950): Tomorrow, When the War Began (1993) et al, The Rabbits (1998, with Shaun Tan)
Sally Morgan (b. 1951): My Place (1987)
Nicholas Jose (b. 1952): Paper Nautilus (1988)
Shane Maloney (b. 1953): The Murray Whelan series: Stiff et al (6 vol, 1994 – 2007): Maloney’s six novels are without a doubt my favourite comic works in the Australian canon. Set during the “Labor boom” years of the 1980s and 1990s, his mid-level political faceless man investigates noir crimes with a sharp tongue and usually a sore head. (A seventh and final novel was announced, but never materialised.) What delights most, however, is Maloney’s coruscating recreation of a Melbourne just passed into history: a grimier, ethically murky city of stark class divisions, which recent social efforts and savvy Councils have attempted to paper over.
David Brooks (b. 1953): The Fern Tattoo (2007), The Grass Library (2019)
Morris Gleitzman (1953): Misery Guts (1991), Two Weeks with the Queen (1991)
Kerry Greenwood (b. 1954): Cocaine Blues (1989) et al (the Phryne Fisher series)
Gail Jones (b. 1955): Sorry (2007), Five Bells (2011), The Death of Noah Glass (2018): there is little to say on Jones that has not been said by award panels and critics everywhere. At her best, she is a piercing sculptor of characters, and a writer of spatial and geographical atmosphere.
Geraldine Brooks (b. 1955), Year of Wonders (2001), March (2005), People of the Book (2008), The Secret Chord (2015).
Michael Gow (b. 1955): The Kid (1983), Away (1986), Once in Royal David’s City (2014)
Antoni Jach (b. 1956): The Weekly Card Game (1994), The Layers of the City (1999): a writer whom I have just discovered, so more to come.
Tim Flannery (b. 1956): The Future Eaters: An Ecological History of the Australasian Lands and People (1994)
Kim Scott (b. 1957): Benang: From the Heart (1999), That Deadman Dance (2010), Taboo (2017): Scott’s two most recent efforts conjure compassionate views of characters, engaging vividly with issues facing Indigenous Australians, while also telling stories of often sublime beauty.
Liam Davison (1957 – 2014): The Velodrome (1988), The Shipwreck Party (1989), Soundings (1993), The White Woman (1994)
Michelle de Kretser (b. 1957): The Hamilton Case (2003), Questions of Travel (2012)
Kathy Lette (b. 1958) and Gabrielle Carey (1959 – 2023): Puberty Blues (1979)
Graeme Base (b. 1958): Animalia (1986), The Eleventh Hour (1988), The Sign of the Seahorse (1992)
Timothy Conigrave (1959 – 1994): Holding the Man (1995)
Tim Winton (b. 1960): Shallows (1984), Cloudstreet (1991), The Riders (1994), Dirt Music (2002), Breathe (2008): I think my interests and sensibilities have separated from Winton’s as I’ve grown older, but his portrayal of working class life, with its vernacular and mores, is the best of his generation. Cloudstreet remains the most beloved Australian novel of the 1990s, and for good reason.
John Hughes (b. 1961): The Remnants (2012), No One (2019): Hughes’ philosophical novels often centre on questions of heritage and cultural inheritance. I have only scratched the surface of Hughes’ work so far, so perhaps more to come.
James Boyce (b. 19??): Van Diemen’s Land (2008), 1835: The Founding of Melbourne (2011)
Richard Flanagan (b. 1961): Death of a River Guide (1994), Gould’s Book of Fish (2001), The Narrow Road to the Deep North (2013): One of our most versatile writers, not all of Flanagan’s experiments appeal to me, but I feel in safe hands every time he begins one.

Stan Grant (b. 1963): Talking to My Country (2016): a prominent voice on Indigenous issues, Grant has an unimpeachable reputation and a sensible ability to examine all sides of an issue. His is not the only voice to listen to on this subject, but it is a vital one.
John Kinsella (b. 1963): Drowning in Wheat: Selected Poems (2016)

Generation X

Melina Marchetta (b. 1964): Looking for Alibrandi (1992)
John Birmingham (b. 1964): He Died with a Felafel in his Hand (1994)
Elliot Perlman (b. 1964): Three Dollars (1998), Seven Types of Ambiguity (2003), The Reasons I Won’t Be Coming (2006), The Street Sweeper (2011)
Christos Tsiolkas (b. 1965): Loaded (1995), The Slap (2008)
Carrie Tiffany (b. 1965): Everyman’s Rules for Scientific Living (2005), Exploded View (2019): a powerhouse of a writer, Tiffany is a current critical darling and deservedly so. Her books disconcert the reader, yet never baffle; they are often dark and tragic, yet never feel grim for the sake of it. A commanding voice.
Charlotte Wood (b. 1965): The Submerged Cathedral (2004), The Natural Way of Things (2015), The Weekend (2019)
Andrew McGahan (1966 – 2019): Praise (1992), 1988: A Novel (1995), The White Earth (2004): McGahan had an insightful and far-reaching mind which sadly left us far too soon. The White Earth is a smart, compassionate epic about how Australians approach their history; his debut novel, the “grunge- lit” cult piece Praise, is worth a peek too.
Melissa Lucashenko (b. 1967): Mullumbimby (2013), Too Much Lip (2018): Lucashenko is an un-putdownable writer, never afraid to expose all of her characters as flawed and often ugly, engaging with a side of Australian culture that many serious writers still choose to avoid.
Wesley Enoch (b. 1969): The Seven Stages of Grieving (1996)
Claire G. Coleman (b. 1972): Terra Nullius (2017), The Old Lie (2019): exciting and relevant speculative fiction, Coleman’s work appeals on both its textual and symbolic levels in equal measure.
Steve Toltz (b. 1972): A Fraction of the Whole (2008), Quicksand (2015), Here Goes Nothing (2022): a supreme comic voice, a purveyor of characters and situations one will find nowhere else. If Toltz is only going to release one novel a decade, I have no problem if they remain this good!
Favel Parrett (b. 1974): Past the Shallows (2011)
Shaun Tan (b. 1974): The Lost Thing (2000), The Arrival (2006), Tales from Outer Suburbia (2008), The Singing Bones (2015), Tales from the Inner City (2018): a visionary mind, Tan’s exquisitely illustrated books will please any child with the ability to see the world from a different angle, and many, many adults as well. His images recur throughout my brain.
Ryan O’Neill (b. 1975): Their Brilliant Careers: The Fantastic Lives of Sixteen Extraordinary Australian Writers (2016), The Drover’s Wives (2018): I utterly adore O’Neill, whose comic and literary sensibilities speak directly to my heart. Their Brilliant Careers is an uproariously hilarious romp through an alternative Australian history, filled with biographies of writers who echo or reflect those we can actually recall.
Trent Dalton (b. 1979): Boy Swallows Universe (2018), All Our Shimmering Skies (2020)
Jane Harper (b. 1980): The Dry (2016), The Lost Man (2018): excellent contemporary crime fiction. No more needs to be said.
Ceridwen Dovey (b. 1980): Blood Kin (2007), In the Garden of the Fugitives (2018), Life After Truth (2020): an illuminating author with a fascination for the philosophical and the ethical, Dovey already has a strong command of psychological nuance. Her career will be one to follow.
Chris Flynn (b. c. 1980): A Tiger in Eden (2012), Mammoth (2020): A fantastically funny and individual voice.
Alice Pung (b. 1981): Her Father’s Daughter (2011)

Millennials and Other Upstarts

Tara June Winch (b. 1983): Swallow the Air (2006), After the Carnage (2016), The Yield (2019): already a powerhouse, Winch explores a variety of voices and ideas in an accessible, compelling way. Definitely a young writer to watch as time goes on.
Behrouz Boochani (b. 1983): No Friend But the Mountains: Writings from Manus Prison (2018)
Robbie Arnott (b. 1989): Flames (2018), The Rain Heron (2020), Limberlost (2022): the youngest writer on the list, Tasmanian-born Arnott’s novels are myth-like and rewarding.

Other authors whose legacy is unconfirmed but may be worth checking out: Emily Bitto, Omar Musa, Emily Maguire, Zoe Morrison, Josephine Wilson, Eva Hornung, Michael Sala, Michael Mohammed Ahmed, Jane Rawson, Heather Rose, Peggy Frew, Sarah Brill, Pip Williams, David Whish-Wilson

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