Sonya Hartnett
Sonya Louise Hartnett is an Australian author of fiction for adults, young adults, and children. She has been called "the finest Australian writer of her generation". For her career contribution to "children's and young adult literature in the broadest sense" Hartnett won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award from the Swedish Arts Council in 2008, one of the largest cash prizes in children's literature.
She has published books as Sonya Hartnett, S. L. Hartnett, and Cameron S. Redfern.
Personal life and education
Hartnett was born 23 March 1968, in Melbourne, Australia to Philip Joseph and Virginia Mary Hartnett. In 1988, she received a Bachelor of Arts from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.Career
Hartnett was thirteen years old when she wrote her first novel and fifteen when it was published for the adult market in Australia, Trouble All the Way. For years she has written about one novel annually. Although she is often classified as a writer of young adult fiction, Hartnett does not consider this label entirely accurate: "I've been perceived as a young adult writer whereas my books have never really been young adult novels in the sort of classic sense of the idea." She believes the distinction is not so important in Britain as in her native land.Many of Hartnett's books have been published in the UK and in North America. For Thursday's Child, she won the annual Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, a once-in-a-lifetime book award judged by a panel of British children's writers. The novel was eligible for such award in 2002 because it was her first publication in the UK. In 2008 she won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award which is administered by the Swedish Arts Council.
''Landscape with Animals'' controversy
In 2006, Hartnett was involved with some controversy regarding the publication of Landscape with Animals, published under the pseudonym Cameron S. Redfern. The book contains many sex scenes and Hartnett was almost immediately "outed" as the author. She said that she wanted to avoid the book being accidentally shelved with her work for children in libraries and denied that she used a pseudonym to evade responsibility for the work or as a publicity stunt à la Nikki Gemmell's The Bride Stripped Bare. In a review published in The Age, Peter Craven savaged the book describing it as an "overblown little sex shocker", a "tawdry little crotch tickler" and lamented that Hartnett was "too good a writer to put her name to this indigestible hairball of spunk and spite". It was defended vigorously in The Australian by Marion Halligan who chastised Craven for missing the joke and wonders why female authors writing frankly about sex is so frowned upon.Awards and honours
In 2000 and 2003, The Sydney Morning Herald named Hartnett one of their Young Novelists of the Year.In 2008, Hartnett received the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, which annually honours an author of children's books whose "a body of work known for its unflinching focus on the toughest aspects of life."
In 2016, Shelf Awareness included Golden Boys on their list of the best teen novels of the year.
| Year | Title | Award | Result | Ref. |
| 1996 | Sleeping Dogs | CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Older Readers | Honour | |
| 1996 | Sleeping Dogs | Kathleen Mitchell Award | Winner | |
| 1996 | Sleeping Dogs | New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards | Shortlist | |
| 1996 | Sleeping Dogs | Victorian Premier's Literary Awards Sheaffer Pen Prize | Winner | |
| 1996 | Willful Blue | IBBY Ena Noel Award | Winner | |
| 1999 | Princes | CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Older Readers | Shortlist | |
| 2000 | Thursday's Child | Aurealis Award for Best Young Adult Novel | Winner | |
| 2000 | Thursday's Child | Australian Publishers Association Award | Shortlist | |
| 2001 | Thursday's Child | CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Older Readers | Shortlist | |
| 2001 | Thursday's Child | New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards | Shortlist | |
| 2002 | Forest | CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Older Readers | Winner | |
| 2002 | Stripes of the Sidestep Wolf | CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Older Readers | Shortlist | |
| 2002 | Thursday's Child | Guardian Children's Fiction Prize | Winner | |
| 2002 | Thursday's Child | Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize | Shortlist | |
| 2003 | Of a Boy | Winner | ||
| 2003 | Of a Boy | Commonwealth Writers Prize | Finalist | |
| 2003 | Of a Boy | Miles Franklin Award | Shortlist | |
| 2003 | Of a Boy | New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards | Shortlist | |
| 2005 | Courier Mail Award for young readers | Winner | ||
| 2005 | CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Younger Readers | Winner | ||
| 2005 | Surrender | Shortlist | ||
| 2005 | Surrender | Aurealis Award for Best Fantasy Novel | Shortlist | |
| 2006 | Surrender | Commonwealth Writers Prize | Shortlist | |
| 2007 | COOL Award Fiction for Years 7-9 | Winner | ||
| 2007 | Surrender | Michael L. Printz Award | Honour | |
| 2008 | The Ghost's Child | CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Older Readers | Winner | |
| 2010 | Butterfly | Miles Franklin Award | Shortlist | |
| 2010 | Aurealis Award for Best Young Adult Novel | Finalist | ||
| 2010 | Andersen Award Best Book for readers 9–12 | Winner | ||
| 2011 | CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Older Readers | Winner | ||
| 2012 | Come Down, Cat! | CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Younger Readers | Honour | |
| 2012 | Come Down, Cat! | Prime Minister's Literary Awards for Children's Fiction | Finalist | |
| 2012 | CILIP Carnegie Medal | Shortlist | ||
| 2013 | CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Younger Readers | Winner | ||
| 2013 | Prime Minister's Literary Awards Young Adult Fiction | Shortlist | ||
| 2015 | Golden Boys | Christine Stead Prize for Fiction | Shortlist | |
| 2015 | Golden Boys | Miles Franklin Award | Shortlist | |
| 2015 | Golden Boys | New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards | Shortlist | |
| 2015 | Golden Boys | Prime Minister's Literary Awards for Fiction | Finalist | |
| 2015 | Golden Boys | Victorian Premier's Literary Awards | Shortlist | |
| 2022 | Blue Flower | CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Picture Book | Shortlist |
Fiction
Picture books
- The Boy and the Toy
- Come Down, Cat!
- Blue Flower
- ''Go Home, Cat!''
Junior fiction
- The Silver Donkey
- Sadie and Ratz
- ''The Children of the King''
Teen and young adult fiction
- Wilful Blue
- * produced as a play and performed at the Victorian Arts Centre
- Sleeping Dogs
- The Devil Latch
- Princes
- All My Dangerous Friends
- Stripes of the Sidestep Wolf
- Thursday's Child
- Forest
- Surrender
- The Ghost's Child
- Butterfly
- ''The Midnight Zoo''
Adult fiction
- Trouble All the Way
- Sparkle and Nightflower
- The Glass House
- Black Foxes
- Of a Boy
- Landscape with Animals, as by Cameron S. Redfern
- ''Golden Boys''
Memoirs
- ''Life in Ten Houses: A Memoir''
Selected critical studies and reviews of Hartnett's work
- Review of ''Golden Boys''