2006 in Australian literature

Events

• South African-born Nobel laureate J.M. Coetzee takes up Australian citizenship
• Australia's Prime Minister, John Howard, complains about the modern school English syllabus, stating that it is being "dumbed down"
• Peter Carey's ex-wife, Alison Summers, takes a swipe at the author, accusing him of using his fiction to settle some old scores. She refers to a minor character in Carey's novel ' and announces she is also writing a novel, titled Mrs Jekyll
• the ABC board decides against publishing the new Chris Masters' book ', an unauthorised biography of Alan Jones, a Sydney radio presenter
• the Australian Classification Review Board bans two radical Islamic books, prompting calls from the Australian Attorney-General for the Board to provide with even tougher laws
• a large treasure trove of missing papers belonging to Patrick White is revealed to the public. Contrary to the wishes expressed in White's will, his literary executor, Barbara Mobbs, did not destroy the material but kept it and has since offered it to the National Library of Australia

  Major publications

Literary fiction

• Azhar Abidi – Passarola Rising
• Venero Armanno – Candle Life
• Max Barry – Company
• James Bradley – The Resurrectionist
• Peter Carey –
• John Charalambous – Silent Parts
• Tegan Bennett Daylight – Safety
• Richard Flanagan – The Unknown Terrorist
• Sandra Hall – Beyond the Break
• Sheridan Hay – The Secret of Lost Things
• M.J. Hyland – Carry Me Down
• Gail Jones – Dreams of Speaking
• Simone Lazaroo – The Travel Writer
• Kate Legge – The Unexpected Elements of Love
• Angelo Loukakis – The Memory of Tides
• David Malouf – Every Move You Make
• Andrew McGahan – Underground
• William McInnes – Cricket Kings
• Andrew O'Connor – Tuvalu
• D.B.C. Pierre – Ludmila's Broken English
• Cameron S. Redfern – Landscape with Animals
• Deborah Robertson – Careless
• David Whish-Wilson – The Summons
• Mike Williams – The Music of Dunes
• Alexis Wright – Carpentaria

  Children's and Young Adult fiction

• Catherine Bateson – Being Bee
• Michael Gerard Bauer – Don't Call Me Ishmael!
• Isobelle Carmody – A Fox Called Sorrow
• D. M. Cornish –
• Alison Croggon – The Crow
• Ursula Dubosarsky – The Red Shoe
• Jackie French – Macbeth and Son
• Lian Hearn – The Harsh Cry of the Heron
• Stephen Michael King – Layla, Queen of Hearts
• Margo Lanagan – Red Spikes
• Justine Larbalestier – Magic Lessons
• Kate McCaffrey – Destroying Avalon
• Melina Marchetta – On the Jellicoe Road
• Juliet Marillier – Wildwood Dancing
• John Marsden – Circle of Flight
• Jaclyn Moriarty – The Betrayal of Bindy Mackenzie
• Garth Nix – Sir Thursday
• Shaun Tan – The Arrival
• Scott Westerfeld
• * The Last Days
• * Peeps

  Crime and Mystery

• Sydney Bauer – Undertow
• John Birmingham – Final Impact
• Laurent Boulanger – Better Dead Than Never
• Kirsty Brooks – The Lady Splash
• Marshall Browne
• * Inspector Anders and the Blood Vendetta
• * Rendezvous at Kamakura Inn
• Steve Caple – Blood On A Blue Line
• Paul Cleave – The Cleaner
• Peter Corris – The Undertow
• Kathryn Fox – Without Consent
• Edwina Grey – Prismatic
• Wayne Grogan – Vale Byron Bay
• Marion Halligan – The Apricot Colonel
• Katherine Howell – Frantic
• Adrian Hyland – Diamond Dove
• Martin Livings – Carnies
• Barry Maitland – Spider Trap
• P.D. Martin – The Murderers’ Club
• Jaclyn Moriarty – The Betrayal of Bindi Mackenzie
• Tara Moss – Hit
• Kel Robertson – Dead Set
• David Rollins – A Knife Edge
• Angela Savage – Behind the Night Bazaar
• Lindsay Simpson – The Curer of Souls
• John Trigger – Upshot
• Michael White – Equinox

  Romance

• Marion Campbell – Shadow Thief
• Sophia James – Ashblane's Lady
• Marion Lennox – Princess of Convenience
• Di Morrissey – The Valley

  Science Fiction and Fantasy

• Damien Broderick – K-Machines
• D. M. Cornish – Monster Blood Tattoo 1: Foundling
• Sara Douglass – Druid's Sword
• Terry Dowling – Basic Black: Tales of Appropriate Fear
• Grace Dugan – The Silver Road
• Will Elliott – The Pilo Family Circus
• Edwina Grey – Prismatic
• Margo Lanagan – Red Spikes
• Martin J. Livings – Carnies
• Brett McBean – The Mother
• Sean McMullen – Voidfarer
• Michael Pryor – Blaze of Glory
• Sean Williams & Shane Dix – Geodesica Descent

  Drama

• Jane Malone – The Rumour
• Tommy Murphy – Holding the Man
• Debra Oswald – The Peach Season
• Stephen Sewell – It Just Stopped

  Poetry

• Robert Adamson – The Goldfinches of Baghdad
• Laurie Duggan – The Passenger
• Dennis Haskell – All the Time in the World
• Judy Johnson – Jack
• S.K. Kelen – Earthly Delights
• Graeme Miles – Phosphorescence
• Les Murray – The Biplane Houses
• Mark Reid – A Difficult Faith
• Thomas Shapcott – The City of Empty Rooms
• John Tranter – Urban Myths: 210 Poems
• Simon West – First Names
• Fay Zwicky – Picnic

  Non-fiction

• Peter Andrews – Back from the Brink: How Australia's Landscape Can Be Saved
• Janine Burke – The Gods of Freud: Sigmund Freud's Art Collection
• Les Carlyon – The Great War
• Neil Chenoweth – Packer's Lunch
• Inga Clendinnen – Agamemnon's Kiss
• Peter Cochrane – Colonial Ambition: Foundations of Australian Democracy
• Peter Edwards – Arthur Tange: The Last of the Mandarins
• Ken Inglis – Whose ABC? The Australian Broadcasting Commission 1983-2006
• Justine Larbalestier – Daughters of Earth: Feminist Science Fiction in the Twentieth Century

  Biographies

• Quentin Beresford – Rob Riley: an Aboriginal Leader's Quest for Justice
• Michael Gurr – Days Like These
• Robert Hughes – Things I Didn't Know
• Elizabeth Jolley & Caroline Lurie – Learning to Dance
• Sylvia Martin – Ida Leeson: A Life
• Chris Masters – Jonestown: The Power and the Myth of Alan Jones
• Alice Pung – Unpolished Gem

  Awards and honours

Lifetime achievement

Fiction

International

National

Children and Young Adult

National

Crime and Mystery

National

Science Fiction

Non-Fiction

Poetry

Drama

Deaths

• 12 January – Rae Sexton, poet
• 16 March – Michael Dugan, writer for children
• 14 April – Geoffrey Bewley, journalist and short story writer
• 6 July – Lisa Bellear, poet
• 10 July – Vera Newsome, poet
• 16 August – Alex Buzo, dramatist
• 4 September – Colin Thiele, writer for children
• 13 September – J. E. Macdonnell, novelist of the sea
• 22 September – Joy Williams, poet
• 3 October – Gwen Meredith, novelist