2020 in Australian literature

This is a list of historical events and publications of Australian literature during 2020.

Literary fiction

 * Patrick Allington – Rise & Shine
 * Robbie Arnott – The Rain Heron
 * James Bradley – Ghost Species
 * Trent Dalton – All Our Shimmering Skies
 * Jon Doust – Return Ticket
 * Chris Flynn – Mammoth
 * Anna Goldsworthy – Melting Moments
 * Kate Grenville – A Room Made of Leaves
 * Gail Jones – Our Shadows
 * Tom Keneally – The Dickens Boy
 * Sofie Laguna – Infinite Splendours
 * Bem Le Hunte – Elephants with Headlights
 * Carol Lefevre – Murmurations
 * Amanda Lohrey – The Labyrinth
 * Laura Jean McKay – The Animals in That Country
 * Andrew Pippos – Lucky's
 * Mirandi Riwoe – Stone Sky Gold Mountain
 * Ronnie Scott – The Adversary
 * Craig Silvey – Honeybee
 * Philip Salom – The Fifth Season
 * Nardi Simpson – Song of the Crocodile
 * Madeleine Watts – The Inland Sea
 * Gina Wilkinson – When the Apricots Bloom
 * Pip Williams – The Dictionary of Lost Words
 * Daniel Davis Wood – At the Edge of the Solid World
 * Evie Wyld – The Bass Rock

Children's and young adult fiction

 * Davina Bell – The End of the World is Bigger than Love
 * Alex Dyson – When It Drops
 * Zana Fraillon – The Lost Soul Atlas
 * Jane Godwin – When Rain Turns to Snow
 * Kate Gordon – Aster's Good, Right Things
 * Libby Hathorn and Lisa Hathorn-Jarman – No! Never!
 * Will Kostakis
 * Rebel Gods
 * The Greatest Hit
 * Anna McGregor – Anemone Is Not The Enemy
 * Cath Moore – Metal Fish, Falling Snow
 * Jaclyn Moriarty – The Stolen Prince of Cloudburst
 * Sally Murphy – Worse Things
 * Katrina Nannestad – We Are Wolves
 * Garth Nix – The Left-Handed Booksellers of London
 * Kirli Saunders – Bindi
 * Shaun Tan – Dog
 * Jessica Townsend – Hollowpox: The Hunt for Morrigan Crow

Crime

 * Anne Buist – The Long Shadow
 * Garry Disher – Consolation
 * Candice Fox – Gathering Dark
 * Sulari Gentill – A Testament of Character
 * Jane Harper – The Survivors
 * Sally Hepworth – The Good Sister
 * Dervla McTiernan – The Good Turn
 * J. P. Pomare – Tell Me Lies
 * Michael Robotham – When She Was Good
 * Sarah Thornton – White Throat
 * David Whish-Wilson – True West

Science Fiction and Fantasy

 * Max Barry – Providence
 * Trudi Canavan – Maker's Curse
 * Gillian Polack – Poison & Light
 * Paul Voermans – The White Library

Poetry

 * Laurie Duggan – Homer Street
 * Michael Farrell – Family Trees
 * Kate Llewellyn – Harbour
 * Felicity Plunkett – A Kinder Sea
 * Ellen van Neerven
 * Homeland Calling: Words from a new generation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices (as editor)
 * Throat

Non-fiction

 * Julia Baird – Phosphorescence: On awe, wonder and things that sustain you when the world goes dark
 * Richard Fidler – The Golden Maze: A History of Prague
 * Michael Gawenda – The Powerbroker: Mark Leibler, an Australian Life
 * Eddie Jaku – The Happiest Man on Earth
 * John Kinsella – Displaced: A Rural Life
 * Grace Karskens – People of the River: Lost worlds of early Australia
 * Michael Gawenda – The Powerbroker: Mark Leibler, an Australian
 * Sophie McNeill – We Can't Say We Didn't Know: Dispatches from an age of impunity
 * Brenda Niall – Friends and Rivals: Four Great Australian Writers: Barbara Baynton, Ethel Turner, Nettie Palmer, Henry Handel Richardson
 * Caroline Overington – Missing William Tyrrell
 * Christopher Pyne – The Insider: The scoops, the scandals and the serious business within the Canberra bubble
 * Cassandra Pybus – Truganini: Journey Through the Apocalypse
 * Miranda Tapsell – Top End Girl
 * Robert Tickner – Ten Doors Down: The Story of an Extraordinary Adoption Reunion
 * Malcolm Turnbull – A Bigger Picture

Awards and honours
Note: these awards were presented in the year in question.

Deaths

 * 1 January – Alexander Frater, travel writer and journalist (born 1937 in Vanuatu)
 * 6 January – Timoshenko Aslanides, poet (born 1943)
 * 20 January – Steph Bowe, young adult novelist and blogger (born 1994)
 * 1 April – Bruce Dawe, poet (born 1930)
 * 14 May – Judith Clarke, writer for children and teenagers (born 1943)
 * 5 June – Andrew Riemer, literary critic and author (born 1936)
 * 10 June – Jesse Blackadder, novelist, screenwriter and journalist (born 1964)
 * 7 July – Elizabeth Harrower, novelist (born 1928)
 * 10 September – Barbara Ker Wilson, English-born Australian editor and novelist (born 1929)
 * 29 September – Ania Walwicz, poet, playwright, prose writer and visual artist (born 1951 in Poland)
 * 6 November – Gerald Stone, journalist (born 1933 in USA)
 * 14 November – Greg Growden, sports journalist, author and biographer (born 1959/60)
 * 9 December – Mungo MacCallum, political journalist and commentator (born 1941)
 * 12 December – Wendy Brennan, romantic fiction writer (co-wrote with husband Frank Brennan as Emma Darcy) (born 1940)