1982 in Australian literature

This article presents a list of the historical events and publications of Australian literature during 1982.

Events

 * Thomas Keneally won the 1982 Booker–McConnell Prize for Schindler's Ark, the first Australian to win the award.
 * Rodney Hall (writer) won the 1982 Miles Franklin Award for Just Relations

Novels

 * Thea Astley — An Item from the Late News
 * Rodney Hall — Just Relations
 * Thomas Keneally — Schindler's Ark
 * David Malouf — Fly Away Peter
 * Gerald Murnane — The Plains
 * Tim Winton — An Open Swimmer

Crime and mystery

 * Peter Corris — The Marvellous Boy

Science fiction and fantasy

 * Glenda Adams — Games of the Strong
 * Damien Broderick — The Judas Mandala

Short stories

 * Beverley Farmer — "Snake"

Children's and young adult fiction

 * Joan Lindsay — Syd Sixpence
 * Jan Ormerod — Moonlight
 * Nadia Wheatley — Five Times Dizzy

Poetry

 * Les Murray
 * Equanimities
 * The Vernacular Republic: Poems 1961–1981
 * John Tranter — Selected Poems

Drama

 * Jack Davis — The Dreamers
 * Louis Nowra — Spellbound
 * David Williamson — The Perfectionist

Non-fiction

 * Blanche d'Alpuget — Robert J. Hawke: A Biography
 * Edmund Campion — Rockchoppers: Growing up Catholic in Australia
 * Nancy Keesing — Lily on the Dustbin: Slang of Australian Women and Families
 * Geoffrey Serle — John Monash

Officer of the Order of Australia (AO)

 * Donald Horne

Member of the Order of Australia (AM)

 * R. D. Fitzgerald
 * Hal Porter

Births
A list, ordered by date of birth (and, if the date is either unspecified or repeated, ordered alphabetically by surname) of births in 1982 of Australian literary figures, authors of written works or literature-related individuals follows, including year of death.
 * 1 January — Craig Silvey, novelist, author of Jasper Jones
 * 22 November — Alasdair Duncan, author and journalist
 * 22 December — Sarah Holland-Batt, contemporary Australian poet, critic and academic

Unknown date
 * Kate Gordon, author of young adult fiction

Deaths
A list, ordered by date of death (and, if the date is either unspecified or repeated, ordered alphabetically by surname) of deaths in 1982 of Australian literary figures, authors of written works or literature-related individuals follows, including year of birth.
 * 11 February — Albert Facey, writer, best known as author of A Fortunate Life (born 1894)
 * 8 October — Joice NanKivell Loch, author, journalist and humanitarian worker (died in Greece) (born 1887)
 * 15 November — Eve Pownall, writer for children and historian (born 1901)