2006 in Australian literature

Events

South African-born Nobel laureate J.M. Coetzee takes up Australian citizenship

Australia's Prime Minister, John Howard, complains about the modern school English syllabus, stating that it is being "dumbed down"

Peter Carey's ex-wife, Alison Summers, takes a swipe at the author, accusing him of using his fiction to settle some old scores. She refers to a minor character in Carey's novel Theft: A Love Story (called The Plaintiff) and announces she is also writing a novel, titled Mrs Jekyll

the ABC board decides against publishing the new Chris Masters book Jonestown, an unauthorised biography of Alan Jones, a Sydney radio presenter

the Australian Classification Review Board bans two radical Islamic books, prompting calls from the Australian Attorney-General for the Board to provide with even tougher laws

a large treasure trove of missing papers belonging to Patrick White is revealed to the public. Contrary to the wishes expressed in White's will, his literary executor, Barbara Mobbs, did not destroy the material but kept it and has since offered it to the National Library of Australia

Literary fiction

Azhar Abidi – Passarola Rising

Venero Armanno – Candle Life

Max Barry – Company

James Bradley – The Resurrectionist

Peter Carey – Theft: A Love Story

John Charalambous – Silent Parts

Tegan Bennett Daylight – Safety

Richard Flanagan – The Unknown Terrorist

Sandra Hall – Beyond the Break

Sheridan Hay – The Secret of Lost Things

M.J. Hyland – Carry Me Down

Gail Jones – Dreams of Speaking

Simone Lazaroo – The Travel Writer

Kate Legge – The Unexpected Elements of Love

Angelo Loukakis – The Memory of Tides

David Malouf – Every Move You Make

Andrew McGahan – Underground

William McInnes – Cricket Kings

Andrew O'Connor – Tuvalu

D.B.C. Pierre – Ludmila's Broken English

Cameron S. Redfern – Landscape with Animals

Deborah Robertson – Careless

David Whish-Wilson – The Summons

Mike Williams – The Music of Dunes

Alexis Wright – Carpentaria

Children's and Young Adult fiction

Catherine Bateson – Being Bee

Michael Gerard Bauer – Don't Call Me Ishmael!

Isobelle Carmody – A Fox Called Sorrow

D. M. Cornish – Monster Blood Tattoo: Foundling

Alison Croggon – The Crow

Ursula Dubosarsky – The Red Shoe

Jackie French – Macbeth and Son

Lian Hearn – The Harsh Cry of the Heron

Stephen Michael King – Layla, Queen of Hearts

Margo Lanagan – Red Spikes

Justine Larbalestier – Magic Lessons

Kate McCaffrey – Destroying Avalon

Melina Marchetta – On the Jellicoe Road

Juliet Marillier – Wildwood Dancing

John Marsden – Circle of Flight

Jaclyn Moriarty – The Betrayal of Bindy Mackenzie

Garth Nix – Sir Thursday

Shaun Tan – The Arrival

Scott Westerfeld

The Last Days

Peeps

Crime and Mystery

Sydney Bauer – Undertow

John Birmingham – Final Impact

Laurent Boulanger – Better Dead Than Never

Kirsty Brooks – The Lady Splash

Marshall Browne

Inspector Anders and the Blood Vendetta

Rendezvous at Kamakura Inn

Steve Caple – Blood On A Blue Line

Paul Cleave – The Cleaner

Peter Corris – The Undertow

Kathryn Fox – Without Consent

Edwina Grey – Prismatic

Wayne Grogan – Vale Byron Bay

Marion Halligan – The Apricot Colonel

Katherine Howell – Frantic

Adrian Hyland – Diamond Dove

Martin Livings – Carnies

Barry Maitland – Spider Trap

P.D. Martin – The Murderers’ Club

Jaclyn Moriaty – The Betrayal of Bindi Mackenzie

Tara Moss – Hit

Kel Robertson – Dead Set

David Rollins – A Knife Edge

Angela Savage – Behind the Night Bazaar

Lindsay Simpson – The Curer of Souls

John Trigger – Upshot

Michael White – Equinox

Romance

Marion Campbell – Shadow Thief

Sophia James – Ashblane's Lady

Marion Lennox – Princess of Convenience

Di Morrissey – The Valley

Science Fiction and Fantasy

Damien Broderick – K-Machines

D. M. Cornish – Monster Blood Tattoo 1: Foundling

Sara Douglass – Druid's Sword

Terry Dowling – Basic Black: Tales of Appropriate Fear

Grace Dugan – The Silver Road

Will Elliott – The Pilo Family Circus

Edwina Grey – Prismatic

Margo Lanagan – Red Spikes

Martin J. Livings – Carnies

Brett McBean – The Mother

Sean McMullen – Voidfarer

Michael Pryor – Blaze of Glory

Sean Williams & Shane Dix – Geodesica Descent

Drama

Jane Malone – The Rumour

Tommy Murphy – Holding the Man

Debra Oswald – The Peach Season

Stephen Sewell – It Just Stopped

Poetry

Robert Adamson – The Goldfinches of Baghdad

Laurie Duggan – The Passenger

Dennis Haskell – All the Time in the World

Judy Johnson – Jack

S.K. Kelen – Earthly Delights

Graeme Miles – Phosphorescence

Les Murray – The Biplane Houses

Mark Reid – A Difficult Faith

Thomas Shapcott – The City of Empty Rooms

John Tranter – Urban Myths: 210 Poems

Simon West – First Names

Fay Zwicky – Picnic

Non-fiction

Peter Andrews – Back from the Brink: How Australia's Landscape Can Be Saved

Janine Burke – The Gods of Freud: Sigmund Freud's Art Collection

Les Carlyon – The Great War

Neil Chenoweth – Packer's Lunch

Inga Clendinnen – Agamemnon's Kiss

Peter Cochrane – Colonial Ambition: Foundations of Australian Democracy

Peter Edwards – Arthur Tange: The Last of the Mandarins

Ken Inglis – Whose ABC? The Australian Broadcasting Commission 1983-2006

Justine Larbalestier – Daughters of Earth: Feminist Science Fiction in the Twentieth Century

Biographies

Quentin Beresford – Rob Riley: an Aboriginal Leader's Quest for Justice

Michael Gurr – Days Like These

Robert Hughes – Things I Didn't Know

Elizabeth Jolley & Caroline Lurie – Learning to Dance

Sylvia Martin – Ida Leeson: A Life

Chris Masters – Jonestown: The Power and the Myth of Alan Jones

Alice Pung – Unpolished Gem

Deaths

12 January – Rae Sexton, poet (born 1936)

16 March – Michael Dugan, writer for children (born 1947)

14 April – Geoffrey Bewley, journalist and short story writer (born 1947)

6 July – Lisa Bellear, poet (born 1961)

10 July – Vera Newsome, poet (born 1912)

16 August – Alex Buzo, dramatist (born 1944)

4 September – Colin Thiele, writer for children (born 1920)

22 September – Joy Williams, poet (born 1942)

3 October – Gwen Meredith, novelist (born 1907)