Gail Jones


Gail Jones is an Australian novelist and academic.

Early life and career

Gail Jones was born in Harvey, Western Australia. She grew up in Broome and Kalgoorlie. She studied fine arts briefly at the University of Melbourne before returning to Western Australia where she took her undergraduate degree and PhD from the University of Western Australia in 1994. Her thesis was titled Mimesis and alterity: postcolonialism, ethnography and the representation of racial 'others'. She is currently Professor of Writing in the Writing and Society Research School at the Western Sydney University.
Jones has also contributed content for an art exhibition, The floating world by Jo Darbyshire.
Since 2017 Jones has been involved in a research project Other Worlds: Forms of 'World Literature', for which she is leading a theme titled 'Form as Encounter' that is exploring intercultural intersections and encounters.

Personal life

Jones has a daughter, Kyra Giorgi, who is also a writer.

Awards

Jones was presented with the Lifetime Achievement in Literature Award by Creative Australia in 2024.
The House of Breathing
Fetish Lives
Black Mirror
  • Western Australian Premier's Book Awards, Fiction winner 2002
  • Shortlisted The Age Book of the Year Award 2003
  • Shortlisted The Courier-Mail Book of the Year 2003
  • Longlist International Dublin Literary Award 2003
  • Nita Kibble Literary Award, 2003
Sixty Lights
Dreams of Speaking
Sorry
Five Bells
  • Longlisted for Miles Franklin Award, 2012
  • Nita Kibble Literary Award, winner, 2012
  • NSW Premier's Literary Awards People's Choice Award, winner, 2012
A Guide to Berlin
The Death of Noah Glass
Our Shadows
  • Longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award, 2021
  • Shortlisted for the Victorian Premier's Prize for Fiction, 2021
  • Shortlisted for the Voss Literary Prize, 2021
Salonika Burning
One Another

Novels

  • Black Mirror
  • Sixty Lights
  • Dreams of Speaking
  • Sorry
  • Five Bells
  • A Guide to Berlin
  • The Death of Noah Glass
  • Our Shadows
  • Salonika Burning
  • One Another
  • ''The Name of the Sister''

    Short story collections

  • The House of Breathing
  • ''Fetish Lives''

    Critical works

  • Dorothy Green Memorial Lecture
  • The Piano, Currency Press
These works have been widely translated. The languages include Italian, German, French, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Hebrew, Mandarin, Polish, Croatian and Czech.