After a number of convict and gold-rush novels in the mid-19th-c (eg Marcus Clarke's For the Term of his Natural Life, 18702), Australian literature began to assume its own identity at the beginning of the 20th-c with distinctive bush ballads and short stories, many published in the Sydney Bulletin. The Australian past was explored in historical novels and family sagas between the wars, which also saw the homespun Jindyworobak movement, though neither of these managed to incorporate the aboriginal experience. Since 1945, Australian literature has been enriched and diversified by many influences, and with novelists such as Nobel prize-winner Patrick White (eg Voss, 1957), Booker prize-winner Thomas Keneally (eg Schindler's Ark, 1982), and Peter Carey (eg Illywhacker, 1985), poets such as Les Murray, Chris Wallace-Crabbe (1934 ), and A D Hope, and a vigorous and inventive drama, it now has a recognized international standing.
Early popular works tended to be of the 'ripping yarn' variety, telling tales of derring-do against the new frontier of the Australian outback. Writers such as Rolf Boldrewood, Marcus Clarke and Joseph Furphy embodied these stirring ideals in their tales and, particularly the latter, tried to accurately record the vernacular language of the common Australian.Poetry
Despite perhaps seeming out of the typical Australian character, poetry played an important part in the founding of Australian literature. Two poets who vie for the position of greatest Australian poet are Christopher Brennan and Adam Lindsay Gordon. Despite this he is often called the "national poet of Australia" and is the only Australian with a monument in Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey in England.
Both Gordon’s and Brennan's (but particularly Brennan’s) works conformed to traditional styles of poetry, with many classical allusions, and therefore fell within the domain of high culture. Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson were two of the chief exponents of these popular ballads, and ‘Banjo’ himself was responsible for creating what is probably the most famous Australian verse, Waltzing Matilda.
20th century
In sharp contrast to these early frontier writers most of the white inhabitants of Australia were city dwellers. Nevertheless their romanticised views of the outback and the rugged characters that inhabited it played an important part in shaping the Australian nation’s psyche, just as the American Old West influenced America’s ideas of itself.
Henry Handel Richardson (the nom de plume of Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson) was, aside from being one of the first female Australian authors, one of the first to write about urban, middle-class life. The 1920s brought two of the most important proponents of Australian literature, Vance and Nettie Palmer, to the fore.
Prominent Australian poets of the twentieth century included A. While anthologies of some note include The Penguin Book of Modern Australian Poetry (1991).
Immigrants and expatriates
One of the most internationally famous Australian novelists Nevil Shute was, like many people in a nation formed on immigration, not native born. Shute moved to Australia and settled there after World War II, portraying world events such as the war and nuclear warfare from an Australian point of view.
Other writers have felt that the remoteness of Australia needed to be escaped.
Later developments
Australian literature can be thought of as coming of age in 1973 when Patrick White became the first and so far only Australian to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature although he was born and spent a large part of his life overseas.
Australian literature has had several scandals surrounding the identity of writers notably the 1944 Ern Malley affair led to an obscenity trial and is often blammed for the lack of modernist poetry in Australia.
James Clavell in his collection of works called The Asian Saga discusses an important feature of Australian literature: its portrayal of far eastern culture from the admittedly even further east, but nevertheless western cultural viewpoint, just as Nevil Shute had done. Clavell was also a successful screenwriter and along with such writers as Thomas Keneally, who won the Booker Prize for Schindler's Ark (the book Schindler's List is based on), has expanded the topics of Australian literature far beyond that one country. To even greater distances, Greg Egan, Joel Shepherd and Traci Harding are just some of the currently popular Australian science fiction and fantasy novelists.
Major Australian literary journals include Meanjin, Overland, Island, Heat and Southerly magazines, and the annual publications Verandah, Sleepers Almanac and Going Down Swinging
Awards
Current literary awards in Australia include:
Anne Elder Award The Australian/Vogel Literary Award The Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Awards Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry Mary Gilmore Prize for a first book of poetry Miles Franklin Award N. Premier's Literary Awards Patrick White Award Queensland Premier's Literary Awards Victorian Premier's Literary Award Western Australian Premier's Book Awards Australian authors are also eligible for the Commonwealth Writers Prize
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