2011 in Australian literature
This article presents a list of the historical events and publications of Australian literature during 2011.
Events
- Four authors are named in the Queen's Birthday Honours: Peter FitzSimons, Susanne Gervay, Roland Perry, and Chris Wallace-Crabbe
- Thomas Keneally donates his personal library to the Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts
- Australian libraries and library associations join together to make 2012 the National Year of Reading
- Australian Booksellers Association declares Saturday, 20 August 2011, the inaugural National Bookshop Day
- Final issue of the "Australian Literary Review" to be published in October 2011
- Hannie Rayson is the first Australian to be awarded a commission with New York’s Manhattan Theatre Club
- Friends and family of biographer Hazel Rowley establish funds to commemorate Rowley’s life and her writing legacy via the Hazel Rowley Literary Fund
- Alison Lester and Boori Monty Pryor are appointed to be Australia’s first Children’s Laureates
- The University of Technology Sydney appoints Robert Adamson to hold the inaugural CAL Chair in Australian Poetry
Major publications
Literary fiction
- Tony Birch – Blood
- Geraldine Brooks – Caleb's Crossing
- Annah Faulkner – The Beloved
- Anna Funder – All That I Am
- Kate Grenville – Sarah Thornhill
- Gail Jones – Five Bells
- Jeanine Leane – Purple Threads
- Gillian Mears – Foal's Bread
- Alex Miller – Autumn Laing
- Frank Moorhouse – Cold Light
- Liane Moriarty – The Hypnotist's Love Story
- Favel Parrett – Past The Shallows
- Elliot Perlman – The Street Sweeper
- Craig Sherborne – The Amateur Science of Love
- Cory Taylor – Me and Mr Booker
- Rohan Wilson – The Roving Party
- Charlotte Wood – ''Animal People''
Children's and Young Adult fiction
- Alexandra Adornetto – Hades
- Em Bailey – Shift
- J. C. Burke – Pig Boy
- Isobelle Carmody – The Sending
- Ursula Dubosarsky – The Golden Day
- Scott Gardner – The Dead I Know
- Steven Herrick – Black Painted Fingernails
- Andrew McGahan – The Coming of the Whirlpool
- Melina Marchetta – Froi of the Exiles
- Vikki Wakefield – All I Ever Wanted
- Scott Westerfeld – ''Goliath''
Science fiction and fantasy
- Max Barry – Machine Man
- Trudi Canavan – The Rogue
- Greg Egan – The Clockwork Rocket
- Will Elliott – Shadow
- Kim Falconer – Road to the Soul
- Pamela Freeman – Ember and Ash
- Richard Harland – Liberator
- Glenda Larke – Stormlord's Exile
- Kim Westwood – ''The Courier's New Bicycle''
Crime and mystery
- Alan Carter – Prime Cut
- Peter Corris – Follow the Money
- Garry Disher – Whispering Death
- Sulari Gentill – A Decline in Prophets
- Kerry Greenwood – Cooking the Books
- Malcolm Knox – The Life
- Stuart Littlemore – Harry Curry: Counsel of Choice
- Barry Maitland – Chelsea Mansions
- Kel Robertson – Rip Off
- Michael Robotham – ''The Wreckage''
Poetry
- Ali Alizadeh – Ashes in the Air
- Joanne Burns – Amphora
- Barry Hill – Lines for Birds: Poems and Paintings
- John Kinsella – Armour
- Geoffrey Lehmann and Robert Gray – Australian Poetry Since 1788
- Jaya Savige – ''Surface to Air''
Biography
- Julian Assange – Julian Assange: The Unauthorised Autobiography
- A. J. Brown – Michael Kirby: Paradoxes and Principles
- Eileen Chanin – Book Life: The Life and Times of David Scott Mitchell 1836–1907
- Raimond Gaita – After Romulus
- Mark McKenna – An Eye for Eternity: The Life of Manning Clark
- Susan Mitchell – Tony Abbott: A Man's Man
- Christine Nixon – Fair Cop
- Sue Pieters-Hawke – Hazel: My Mother's Story
- Alice Pung – Her Father's Daughter
- David Robert Walker – Not Dark Yet: A Personal History
- Sarah Watt & William McInnes – ''Worse Things Happen at Sea''
Awards and honours
Drama
Deaths
- 1 March – Hazel Rowley, author
- 15 June – Anne Godfrey-Smith, poet and theatre producer/director
- 20 June – T. A. G. Hungerford, author
- 2 September – Bernard Smith, art historian
- 27 September – Sara Douglass, author
- 4 October – Di Gribble, editor and publisher
- 8 December – Zelman Cowen, jurist
- May – Robert J. Merritt, playwright