1997 in Australian literature

Events

• David Foster won the Miles Franklin Award for ''The Glade Within the Grove''

Major publications

Novels

• John Birmingham — The Tasmanian Babes Fiasco
• James Bradley — Wrack
• Peter Carey — Jack Maggs
• J. M. Coetzee — Boyhood: Scenes from Provincial Life
• Marele Day — Lambs of God
• Luke Davies — Candy
• Delia Falconer — The Service of Clouds
• Richard Flanagan — The Sound of One Hand Clapping
• Elizabeth Jolley — Lovesong
• Rod Jones — Nightpictures
• Melissa Lucashenko — Steam Pigs
• Colleen McCullough — Caesar
• Madeleine St John — The Essence of the Thing
• Tim Winton — Blueback
• Alexis Wright — ''Plains of Promise''

Children's and young adult fiction

• Damien Broderick and Rory Barnes — Zones
• Kim Caraher — Up a Gum Tree
• Isobelle Carmody
• * Darkfall
• * Greylands
• Gary Crew and Michael O'Hara — The Blue Feather
• Sonya Hartnett — Princes
• Catherine Jinks — Eye to Eye
• Garth Nix — Shade's Children
• Sarah Walker — The Year of Freaking Out
• Tim Winton — ''Lockie Leonard, Legend''

Science fiction and fantasy

• Damien Broderick — The White Abacus
• Damien Broderick & David G. Hartwell — Centaurus: The Best of Australian Science Fiction
• Sara Douglass
• * Sinner
• * Threshold
• Greg Egan
• * Diaspora
• * "Reasons to Be Cheerful"
• Kim Wilkins — ''The Infernal''

Crime

• Jon Cleary — A Different Turf
• Peter Corris
• * The Reward
• * The Washington Club
• Garry Disher — Fallout
• Kerry Greenwood — ''Raisins and Almonds''

Poetry

• Peter Boyle — The Blue Cloud of Crying
• Alison Croggon — The Blue Gate
• Philip Hodgins — Selected Poems
• Jill Jones — The Book of Possibilities
• Emma Lew — The Wild Reply
• Rhyll McMaster — ''Chemical Bodies: A diary of probable events, 1994–1997''

Drama

• Hilary Bell — Wolf Lullaby
• Leah Purcell and Scott Rankin — Box the Pony
• David Williamson — ''After the Ball''

Non-fiction

• Mark Raphael Baker — The Fiftieth Gate
• Barbara Blackman — Glass after Glass
• Lynne Hume — Witchcraft and Paganism in Australia
• Roberta Sykes — ''Snake Cradle''

Awards and honours

• Morris West "for service to literature"
• Barbara Buick "for service to women, particularly through Equal Employment Opportunity Tribunal in Western Australia and to librarianship and publishing, particularly through the promotion of children's literature"
• Ken Goodwin (academic) "for service to literature, art administration and education"
• Manfred Jurgensen "for service to literature as a novelist, poet and critic, and as founder of the journal Outrider"
• Edna Laing "for service to the arts and literature through the Creativity Centre, Brisbane"
• Rodney Lumer "for service to the arts through the promotion and publication of works by Australian playwrights"
• Sydney John Trigellis-Smith "for service to military history as a researcher, author and publisher of several unit histories of campaigns of World War II"
• Albert Ullin "for service to the promotion of children's literature in Australia and overseas"

Fiction

International

Poetry

Drama

Deaths

• 14 February — Marian Eldridge, short story writer, poet and book reviewer
• 16 February — Gilbert Mant, journalist and writer
• 8 March — Rupert Lockwood, journalist and author
• 14 April — Kit Denton, writer and broadcaster
• 8 June — George Turner, writer and critic, best known for science fiction novels
• 11 June — Jill Neville, novelist, playwright and poet
• 16 June — Dal Stivens, novelist and short story writer
• 19 June — David Denholm, author and historian who published fiction under the pseudonym David Forrest and history under his own name
• 1 July — David Martin, novelist, poet, playwright, journalist, editor, literary reviewer and lecturer
• 2 August — Joyce Dingwell, writer of more than 80 romance novels for Mills & Boon from 1931 to 1986, who also wrote under the pseudonym of Kate Starr

• Roger Bennett, actor and playwright