Online lists

Websites which include information about Australian literary awards, and provide lists of winners:

The Miles Franklin Award

Children's Book of the Year Awards

Adelaide Festival awards for literature

Koala: Kids Own Australian Literature Awards including previous winners 

Dorothea Mackellar Poetry Awards

These and other awards can be seen at Wikipedia list of Australian literary awards

Access to Library materials

If you are a registered reader, You can request items to read and photocopy in the reading rooms of the National Library of Australia.  

Registered readers can also search selected subscription databases.

If you can't visit the Library, you can use the National Library's Copies Direct service to request copies and have them sent to you via mail or email. Please note there may be copyright restrictions when using this service.

You can also search Trove to find a library closer to you which has the item in their collection.

If there is no library near you with the item, you may be able to arrange an interlibrary loan through your local public or institutional library  Please ask staff at your local library for assistance with this.

Two men shaking handsFairfax Corporation, Two men shaking hands in front of a schoolboy holding two trophies and another with three books at Sydney Boys' High School, Sydney, 28 December 1931, nla.obj-161791200  

How do you find Australian literature awards?

Start with the  Library Catalogue

  • Type your keywords [the award in question and the word 'winner'] in the search bar

Example: A search for 'Miles Franklin Award winner' returns search results including All the birds, singing by Evie Wyld. The catalogue record for this item notes it won the Award in 2024 in the 'Awards' field.

Selected works:

Where can you find information in our online databases?

AustLit: the resource for Australian literature is a key resource for information about Australian writers and writing. The latest awards news is given on the AustLit home page, and author information includes a list of awards given.

Who's Who in Australia. Here you can search for people, Australian Awards, such as the Miles Franklin Award or Premier's Awards, and occupations such as writer, author or novellist. Search results may include contact details for authors or their agents. 

You can find AustLit and Who's Who in Australia by visiting our eResources portal and searching for the databases under the Browse eResources tab. 

If you are a registered member of the National Library you can access both databases from home.

Case Study

The Nobel Prize

Is The Solid Mandala Patrick White's Nobel Prize Book?

1. We can look into the awards won by Patrick White, both the Nobel Prize in Literature and the other literature awards, using AustLit and internet searches.

2. Patrick White won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1973. This award isn't given for an individual book, but rather for an entire body of work created over a number of years. Information about the Nobel prize won by Patrick White can be found on the official Nobel Prize website. The site notes that the Nobel Prize was awarded to White 'for an epic and psychological narrative art which has introduced a new continent into literature'.

3. Other awards listed in AustLit for Patrick White include: 

5. According to Patrick White: letters by David Marr, The Solid Mandala was first published in 1966. It was short-listed for the 1967 Miles Franklin Literary award, until White personally intervened and withdrew it from consideration so that other writers might stand a chance of winning.

Featured resource

Image

MS 681 Papers of Miles Franklin 1887-[ca. 1931]  Item: Miles Franklin nla.obj-229628701 

The Miles Franklin Literary Award, Australia's first literary award, was established in 1954 with a bequest from the author Miles Franklin.

WHERE CAN YOU FIND INFORMATION ABOUT LITERATURE AWARDS?

Not sure where to start?