2021 in Australian literature

This is a list of historical events and publications of Australian literature during 2021.

Literary fiction

 * Aravind Adiga – Amnesty
 * Michael Mohammed Ahmad – The Other Half of You
 * Evelyn Araluen – Dropbear
 * Larissa Behrendt – After Story
 * Steven Carroll – O
 * Michelle de Kretser – Scary Monsters
 * Jennifer Down – Bodies of Light
 * Briohny Doyle – Echolalia
 * Max Easton – The Magpie Wing
 * Nikki Gemmell – The Ripping Tree
 * Anita Heiss – Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray: River of Dreams
 * John Kinsella – Pushing Back
 * Emily Maguire – Love Objects
 * Jennifer Mills – The Airways
 * Alice Pung – One Hundred Days
 * Claire Thomas – The Performance
 * Christos Tsiolkas – 7 ½
 * Michael Winkler – Grimmish

Collected essays

 * Chelsea Watego – Another Day in the Colony

Children's and young adult fiction

 * Felicity Castagna – Girls in Boys' Cars
 * Sophie Gonzales – Only Mostly Devastated
 * Katrina Nannestad – Rabbit, Soldier, Angel Thief

Crime and mystery

 * Tim Ayliffe – The Enemy Within
 * Mark Brandi – The Others
 * B. M. Carroll – You Had It Coming
 * Candice Fox – The Chase
 * Helen FitzGerald – Ash Mountain
 * Jack Heath – Kill Your Brother
 * Charlotte McConaghy – Once There Were Wolves
 * Debra Oswald – The Family Doctor
 * Kyle Perry – The Deep
 * Michael Robotham – When You Are Mine

Poetry

 * Pam Brown – Stasis Shuffle
 * Maxine Beneba Clarke – How Decent Folk Behave
 * Andy Jackson – Human Looking
 * Maria Takolander – Trigger Warning

Non-fiction

 * Randa Abdel-Fattah – Coming of Age in the War on Terror
 * Julia Banks – Power Play: Breaking Through Bias, Barriers and Boys' Clubs
 * Alison Croggon – Monsters: A reckoning
 * Mehreen Faruqi – Too Migrant, Too Muslim, Too Loud
 * Ross Garnaut – Reset: Restoring Australia after the Pandemic Recession
 * Stan Grant – With the Falling of the Dusk
 * Dale Kent – The Most I Could Be
 * Scott Ludlam – Full Circle: A search for the world that comes next
 * Mark McKenna – Return to Uluru
 * Henry Reynolds – Truth-Telling: History, sovereignty and the Uluru Statement
 * Jeff Sparrow – Crimes Against Nature: Capitalism and Global Heating
 * Corey Tutt and Blak Douglas (illustrator) – The First Scientists: Deadly Inventions and Innovations from Australia's First Peoples

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

Deaths

 * 1 May – Kate Jennings, poet and writer (died in the United States) (b. 1948)
 * 25 April – Valerie Parv, romance novelist (b. 1951)
 * 16 May – Vera Deacon, historian (b. 1926)
 * 16 September – Tim Thorne, poet (b. 1944)
 * 22 November –
 * Stuart Macintyre, historian (b. 1947)
 * Doug MacLeod, children's writer, poet, screenwriter and playwright (b. 1959)
 * Babette Smith, historian (b. 1942)
 * 26 November – Desmond O'Grady, journalist and author (died in Rome) (b. 1929)
 * 26 December – Paul B. Kidd, radio broadcaster and true crime writer (b. 1945)