2002 in Australian literature

Literary fiction

J. M. Coetzee – Youth: Scenes from Provincial Life II

Bryce Courtenay – Matthew Flinders' Cat

Andrea Goldsmith – The Prosperous Thief

Sonya Hartnett – Of a Boy

Sarah Hay – Skins

Chloe Hooper – A Child's Book of True Crime

Kate Jennings – Moral Hazard

Gail Jones – Black Mirror

Thomas Keneally – An Angel in Australia

Colleen McCullough – The October Horse

Alex Miller – Journey to the Stone Country

Dorothy Porter – Wild Surmise

Eva Sallis – The City of Sealions

Children's and Young Adult fiction

J. C. Burke – White Lies

Isobelle Carmody – Darksong

Alison Croggon – The Gift

Marieke Hardy – Short Cuts

Richard Harland – Ferren and the White Doctor

Lian Hearn – Across the Nightingale Floor

Maureen McCarthy – When You Wake and Find Me Gone

Meme McDonald and Boori Pryor – Njunjul the Sun

David Metzenthen – Wildlight: A Journey

Kirsty Murray – Walking Home with Marie-Claire

Gillian Rubinstein – The Whale's Child

Markus Zusak – The Messenger

Crime

Carmel Bird – Open for Inspection

Kirsty Brooks – Lady Luck

Jon Cleary – The Easy Sin

Jane Clifton – Half Past Dead

Peter Corris – Salt and Blood

Kerry Greenwood – Murder in Montparnasse

Gabrielle Lord – Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing

Barry Maitland – Babel

Shane Maloney – Something Fishy

Tara Moss – Split

Alex Palmer – Blood Redemption

Peter Temple – In The Evil Day

Romance

Lilian Darcy – For the Taking

Barbara Hannay

A Bride at Birralee

Their Doorstep Baby

Di Morrissey – Kimberley Sun

Valerie Parv

The Baron and the Bodyguard

The Marquis and the Mother-To-Be

Science Fiction and Fantasy

Damien Broderick – Transcension

Trudi Canavan – The Novice

Cecilia Dart-Thornton

The Battle of Evernight

The Lady of the Sorrows

Sara Douglass

The Crippled Angel

Hades' Daughter

Ian Irvine – Tetrarch

Fiona McIntosh

Destiny

Revenge

Sean McMullen – Voyage of the Shadowmoon

Juliet Marillier – Wolfskin

Sean Williams

Echoes of Earth with Shane Dix

The Sky Warden and the Sun

The Storm Weaver and the Sand

Drama

David Brown – Eating Ice Cream With Your Eyes Closed

Nick Enright

Country Music

A Man with Five Children

Michael Gow – The Fortunes of Richard Mahony

Michael Gurr – The Simple Truth

Daniel Keene – Half and Half

Jenny Kemp – Still Angela

Joanna Murray-Smith – Rapture

David Williamson – Soulmates

Poetry

M. T. C. Cronin – My Lover's Back : 79 Love Poems

Robert Gray – Afterimages

Jill Jones – Screens Jets Heaven: New and Selected Poems

Emma Lew – Anything the Landlord Touches

Kate Lilley – Versary

Les Murray

Collected Poems : 1961-2002

Poems the Size of Photographs

Non-fiction

Anna Funder – Stasiland

Mark McKenna – Looking for Blackfellas' Point : An Australian History of Place

Ashley Mallett – The Black Lords of Summer : The Story of the 1868 Aboriginal Tour of England and Beyond

John Marsden – The Boy You Brought Home : A Single Mother's Guide to Raising Boys

Biographies

Nick Bleszynski – Shoot Straight, You Bastards! : The Truth Behind the Killing of 'Breaker' Morant

Barry Dickins – Black and Whiteley : Barry Dickins in Search of Brett

Ann Galbally – Charles Conder : The Last Bohemian

Barry Hill – Broken Song : T. G. H. Strehlow and Aboriginal Possession

Thomas Keneally – American Scoundrel : The Life of the Notorious Civil War General Dan Sickles

Ross McMullin – Pompey Elliott

Brenda Niall – The Boyds : A Family Biography

Don Watson – Recollections of a Bleeding Heart : A Portrait of Paul Keating PM

Awards and honours

Note: these awards were presented in the year in question.

Deaths

21 May – Dorothy Hewett, poet (born 1923)

27 May – Ray Mathew, poet and novelist (born 1929)

13 September – J. E. Macdonnell, novelist (born 1917)

2 October – R. A. Simpson, poet (born 1929)

8 December – Gary Catalano, poet and critic (born 1947)