1996 in Australian literature

Events

• Christopher Koch won the Miles Franklin Award for Highways to a War
• David Malouf won the International Dublin Literary Award for Remembering Babylon
• The Ned Kelly Awards, honouring excellence in Australian crime writing, are presented for the first time

Major publications

Novels

• Thea Astley — The Multiple Effects of Rainshadow
• James Cowan — A Mapmaker's Dream
• Robert Dessaix — Night Letters: A Journey Through Switzerland and Italy Edited and Annotated by Igor Miazmov
• Garry Disher — The Sunken Road
• Robert Drewe — The Drowner
• David Foster — The Glade Within the Grove
• Clive James — The Silver Castle
• David Malouf — The Conversations at Curlow Creek
• John A. Scott — Before I Wake
• Janette Turner Hospital — Oyster
• Morris West — Vanishing Point
• Sue Woolfe — ''Leaning Towards Infinity''

Short story anthologies

• Kerryn Goldsworthy — ''Australian Love Stories''

Science fiction and fantasy

• Sara Douglass
• *Enchanter
• *StarMan
• Matthew Reilly — Contest
• Jane Routley — Mage Heart
• Dirk Strasser — Equinox
• Lucy Sussex — The Scarlet Rider
• Sean Williams — ''Metal Fatigue''

Crime

• Jon Cleary – Endpeace
• Peter Doyle – Get Rich Quick
• Shane Maloney – The Brush-Off
• Peter Temple – ''Bad Debts''

Children's and young adult fiction

• Margaret Clark — Fat Chance
• Sonya Hartnett — Black Foxes
• Kerry Greenwood — The Broken Wheel
• John Marsden — Checkers
• James Moloney — ''A Bridge to Wiseman's Cove''

Poetry

• Eric Beach — Weeping for Lost Babylon
• Lisa Bellear — Dreaming in Urban Areas
• Judith Beveridge — Accidental Grace
• John Kinsella — The Undertow: New and Selected Poems
• Anthony Lawrence — The Viewfinder
• Les Murray — Subhuman Redneck Poems
• Dorothy Porter — Crete
• Morgan Yasbincek — ''Night Reversing''

Drama

• Nick Enright — Blackrock
• Jenny Kemp — The Black Sequin Dress
• Debra Oswald — Gary's House
• David Williamson — ''Heretic''

Non-fiction

• Bronwyn Donaghy — Anna's Story
• Doris Pilkington Garimara — Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence
• Helen Garner — ''True Stories: Selected Non-Fiction''

Awards and honours

• Mavis Thorpe Clark "for service to the arts as the author of children's literature and as an active member of the writer's organisations in Australia"
• Susanna de Vries "for service to art as an author and lecturer in Australian and European art history and history"
• Christobel Mattingley "for service to literature, particularly children's literature, and for community service through her commitment to social and cultural issues"

Fiction

International

Poetry

Drama

Non-fiction

Deaths

• 12 February — Betty Roland, writer of plays, screenplays, novels, children's books and comics
• 26 March —Godfrey Blunden, journalist and author
• 23 April — P. L. Travers, children's writer, best known for the Mary Poppins (book series)
• 28 April —Mena Calthorpe, writer
• 27 October — Charlotte Jay, mystery writer and novelist who also wrote under her married name, Geraldine Halls
• 28 November — Hugh V. Clarke, soldier, public servant and author, specialising in military history
• 31 December — John Rowland, public servant, diplomat and poet