Online lists
Websites which include information about Australian literary awards, and provide lists of winners:
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.
Fairfax 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
Start with the Library Catalogue
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:
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.
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
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?
New authors and their publishers may be interested in several literary awards made around Australia.
Nib Waverly Library Award for Literature
Northern Territory Literary Awards
