2011 in Australian literature

This article presents a list of the historical events and publications of Australian literature during 2011.

Events

 * Four authors are named in the Queen's Birthday Honours: Peter FitzSimons, Susanne Gervay, Roland Perry, and Chris Wallace-Crabbe
 * Thomas Keneally donates his personal library to the Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts
 * Australian libraries and library associations join together to make 2012 the National Year of Reading
 * Australian Booksellers Association (ABA) declares Saturday, 20 August 2011, the inaugural National Bookshop Day
 * Final issue of the "Australian Literary Review" to be published in October 2011
 * Hannie Rayson is the first Australian to be awarded a commission with New York’s Manhattan Theatre Club
 * Friends and family of biographer Hazel Rowley establish funds to commemorate Rowley’s life and her writing legacy via the Hazel Rowley Literary Fund
 * Alison Lester and Boori Monty Pryor are appointed to be Australia’s first Children’s Laureates
 * The University of Technology Sydney (UTS) appoints Robert Adamson to hold the inaugural CAL Chair in Australian Poetry

Literary fiction

 * Tony Birch – Blood
 * Geraldine Brooks – Caleb's Crossing
 * Annah Faulkner – The Beloved
 * Anna Funder – All That I Am
 * Kate Grenville – Sarah Thornhill
 * Gail Jones – Five Bells
 * Jeanine Leane – Purple Threads
 * Gillian Mears – Foal's Bread
 * Alex Miller – Autumn Laing
 * Frank Moorhouse – Cold Light
 * Favel Parrett – Past The Shallows
 * Elliot Perlman – The Street Sweeper
 * Craig Sherborne – The Amateur Science of Love
 * Rohan Wilson – The Roving Party
 * Charlotte Wood – Animal People

Children's and Young Adult fiction

 * Alexandra Adornetto – Hades
 * Em Bailey – Shift
 * J. C. Burke – Pig Boy
 * Isobelle Carmody – The Sending
 * Ursula Dubosarsky – The Golden Day
 * Scott Gardner – The Dead I Know
 * Steven Herrick – Black Painted Fingernails
 * Andrew McGahan – The Coming of the Whirlpool
 * Melina Marchetta – Froi of the Exiles
 * Vikki Wakefield – All I Ever Wanted
 * Scott Westerfeld – Goliath

Science fiction and fantasy

 * Max Barry – Machine Man
 * Trudi Canavan – The Rogue
 * Greg Egan – The Clockwork Rocket
 * Will Elliott – Shadow
 * Kim Falconer – Road to the Soul
 * Pamela Freeman – Ember and Ash
 * Richard Harland – Liberator
 * Glenda Larke – Stormlord's Exile
 * Kim Westwood – The Courier's New Bicycle

Crime and mystery

 * Alan Carter – Prime Cut
 * Peter Corris – Follow the Money
 * Garry Disher – Whispering Death
 * Kerry Greenwood – Cooking the Books
 * Stuart Littlemore – Harry Curry: Counsel of Choice
 * Barry Maitland – Chelsea Mansions
 * Kel Robertson – Rip Off
 * Michael Robotham – The Wreckage

Poetry

 * Ali Alizadeh – Ashes in the Air
 * Joanne Burns – Amphora
 * Barry Hill – Lines for Birds: Poems and Paintings
 * John Kinsella – Armour
 * Geoffrey Lehmann and Robert Gray – Australian Poetry Since 1788 (edited)
 * Jaya Savige – Surface to Air

Biography

 * Julian Assange – Julian Assange: The Unauthorised Autobiography
 * A. J. Brown – Michael Kirby: Paradoxes and Principles
 * Eileen Chanin – Book Life: The Life and Times of David Scott Mitchell 1836–1907
 * Raimond Gaita – After Romulus
 * Mark McKenna – An Eye for Eternity: The Life of Manning Clark
 * Susan Mitchell – Tony Abbott: A Man's Man
 * Christine Nixon – Fair Cop
 * Sue Pieters-Hawke – Hazel: My Mother's Story
 * Alice Pung – Her Father's Daughter
 * David Robert Walker – Not Dark Yet: A Personal History
 * Sarah Watt, William McInnes – Worse Things Happen at Sea

Deaths
Unknown date
 * 1 March – Hazel Rowley, author (born 1951)
 * 15 June – Anne Godfrey-Smith, poet and theatre producer/director (born 1921)
 * 20 June – T. A. G. Hungerford, author (born 1915)
 * 2 September – Bernard Smith, art historian (born 1916)
 * 27 September – Sara Douglass, author (born 1957)
 * 4 October – Di Gribble, editor and publisher (born 1942)
 * 8 December – Zelman Cowen, jurist (born 1919)


 * May – Robert J. Merritt, playwright (born 1945)