1986 in Australian literature

This article presents a list of the historical events and publications of Australian literature during 1986.

Events

 * Elizabeth Jolley won the 1986 Miles Franklin Award for The Well
 * The Melbourne Writers Festival is held for the first time

Novels

 * Margaret Barbalet — Blood in the Rain
 * Janine Burke — Second Sight
 * Elizabeth Jolley — The Well
 * Rod Jones — Julia Paradise
 * John Macgregor — Propinquity
 * Christina Stead — I'm Dying Laughing: The Humourist
 * Alan Wearne — The Nightmarkets
 * Morris West — Cassidy
 * Tim Winton — That Eye, the Sky 
 * Patrick White — Memoirs of Many in One

Crime and mystery

 * Peter Corris
 * Deal Me Out
 * The Greenwich Apartments
 * Tony Kenrick — China White

Science fiction and fantasy

 * George Turner — "Shut the Door When You Go Out"
 * Cherry Wilder — The Summer's King

Short Stories

 * Janette Turner Hospital — Dislocations
 * Joan London — Sister Ships and Other Stories
 * Sally Morgan — "The Letter"
 * Archie Weller — Going Home
 * Tim Winton — "Swimming to Salvation"

Children's and young adult fiction

 * Graeme Base — Animalia
 * Hesba Fay Brinsmead — Someplace Beautiful
 * Victor Kelleher — Taronga
 * Doug MacLeod — Sister Madge's Book of Nuns
 * Emily Rodda — Pigs Might Fly
 * Gillian Rubinstein — Space Demons

Poetry

 * Lily Brett — The Auschwitz Poems
 * Robert Harris — The Cloud Passes Over
 * Philip Hodgins — Blood and Bone
 * Rhyll McMaster — Washing the Money: Poems with photographs
 * Jan Owen — Boy with a Telescope
 * John A. Scott — St. Clair: Three Narratives

Drama

 * Michael Gow — Away

Non-fiction

 * Gillian Bouras — A Foreign Wife
 * Robert Hughes — The Fatal Shore
 * Kylie Tennant — The Missing Heir

Awards and honours

 * Geoffrey Serle, for "service to scholarship and literature, particularly in the field of Australian history"
 * Nicholas Hasluck, for "service to literature"
 * Dorothy Hewett, for "service to literature"
 * Barbara Jefferis, for "service to literature"
 * Grace Perry, for "service to Australian literature, particularly as editor of Poetry Australia"
 * Russel Ward, for "service to literature, particularly in the field of Australian history"

Births
A list, ordered by date of birth (and, if the date is either unspecified or repeated, ordered alphabetically by surname) of births in 1986 of Australian literary figures, authors of written works or literature-related individuals follows, including year of death.


 * 23 August — Jack Heath, writer of fiction for children and adults

Deaths
A list, ordered by date of death (and, if the date is either unspecified or repeated, ordered alphabetically by surname) of deaths in 1986 of Australian literary figures, authors of written works or literature-related individuals follows, including year of birth.


 * 2 March — Margaret Trist, novelist and short story writer (born 1914)
 * 27 September — Olga Masters, writer, journalist, novelist and short story writer (born 1919)
 * 10 November — Laurence Collinson, British and Australian playwright, actor, poet, journalist, and secondary school teacher (born 1925)