Booktopia would like to give a massive thanks again to everyone who has voted in to decide who is Australia’s Favourite Novelist. Without you we wouldn’t be able to have this celebration of outstanding Aussie Writers.
The votes have been counted and we have our top 50, and it’s a wonderful list full of surprises. It reflects the diversity and vibrancy of Australian Literature both past and present, as well as a reminder of an exciting future ahead of us.
At Midday (EST) every day this week we’ll be announcing the list in groups of ten. The top ten will be announced at Midday on Friday the 25th of January.
So without further ado, here’s the 50-41 placings for Australia’s Favourite Novelist, as voted by you.
50. Peter Temple
Peter Temple is the author of nine novels, including four books in the Jack Irish series. He has won the Ned Kelly Award for Crime Fiction five times, and his widely acclaimed novels have been published in over twenty countries.
Our Pick
The Broken Shore won the UK’s prestigious Duncan Lawrie Dagger for the best crime novel of 2007 and Truth won the 2010 Miles Franklin Literary Award, the first time a crime writer has won an award of this calibre anywhere in the world.
Temple’s first two novels Bad Debts and Black Tide have been made into films with Guy Pearce starring as Jack Irish.
Click here to go to Peter Temple’s author page
49. Jay Kristoff
Jay Kristoff was born and brought up in Perth. He grew up reading and collecting books and spent most of his free time playing Dungeons & Dragons.
He graduated with an Arts degree and then spent ten years in the field of creative advertising for which he won several awards.
Our Pick
Jay is the author of The Lotus Trilogy, a Japanese-inspired fantasy series published in 2012.
He currently lives in Melbourne with his wife and dog.
Click here to go to Jay Kristoff’s author page
48. Nikki Gemmell
Nikki Gemmell has written the novels, Shiver, Cleave, Lovesong, The Bride Stripped Bare, Wih My Body and The Book Of Rapture, as well as the non-fiction book, Pleasure: An Almanac for the Heart. Her work has been internationally critically acclaimed and translated into many languages.
In France she’s been described as a female Jack Kerouac, in Australia as one of the most original and engaging authors of her generation and in the US as one of the few truly original voices to emerge in a long time.
Our Pick
The French literary review “Lire” has included her in a list of what it calls the fifty most important writers in the world – the ones it believes will have a significant influence on the literature of the 21st century. The criteria for selection included a very individual voice and unmistakeable style, as well as an original choice of subject. Nikki Gemmell was selected along with such novelists as Rick Moody, Zadie Smith, Jonathan Safran Froer, Rohinton Mistry, Tim Winton, Colum McCann, Michel Faber and Hari Kunzru among others.
Click here to go to Nikki Gemmell’s author page
47. Charlotte Wood
Charlotte Wood is the author of four novels – Pieces of a Girl, The Submerged Cathedral, The Children and Animal People, as well as a collection of short personal reflections on cooking, Love & Hunger.
She was also editor of the anthology of writing about siblings, Brothers & Sisters (2009). Her books have been critically well received and frequently short-listed for prizes.
Our Pick
Animal People was longlisted for the 2012 Miles Franklin Award. She has a background in journalism and has also taught writing at a variety of levels.
She currently lives in Sydney. She is working on a fifth novel. Charlotte Wood also writes about food and cooking at her blog, https://www.howtoshuckanoyster.com.
Click here to go to Charlotte Wood’s author page
46. Andy Griffiths
Andy Griffiths is one of Australia’s most popular children’s writers. He is the author of over 20 books, including nonsense verse, short stories, comic novels and plays. Over the past 15 years Andy’s books have been New York Times bestsellers, won over 50 children’s choice awards, been adapted as a television cartoon series and sold over 5 million copies worldwide.
Our Pick
Andy has had a long-standing collaboration with illustrator Terry Denton. Their latest collaboration is The 13-Storey Treehouse which was voted ABIA’s 2012 Book of the Year for Older Readers, and September 2012 sees the hugely anticipated The 26-Storey Treehouse. Meanwhile Andy and Terry are also working on a collection of inspirational writing exercises called Once Upon a Slime for English teachers and emerging writers and illustrators to be published in April 2013.
Click here to go to Andy Griffiths’ author page
45. Di Morrissey
Di Morrissey is one of Australia’s most popular female novelists. She grew up in Pittwater, north of Sydney.
She became a journalist on London’s Fleet Street, and worked for CBS in Honolulu. After moving back to Australia, she published her first book ‘Heart of the Dreaming’ which instantly became a bestseller. Since then she has published another 20 bestsellers.
Our Pick
Morrissey is an environmentalist and activist. She has been a longtime supporter of Aung San Suu Kyi and has visited Burma several times where she is now helping raise funds to build a monastery school in Sagaing. Morrissey’s latest book, The Golden Land, is set in Burma.
Click here to go to Di Morrissey’s author page
44. Christina Stead
Christina Stead (1902-1983) was an Australian novelist and short-story writer acclaimed for her satirical wit and psychological penetration. She wrote 15 novels and several volumes of short stories in her lifetime.
Her first novel, Seven Poor Men of Sydney, dealt with the lives of radicals and dockworkers. Stead’s best-known novel, with the ironic title The Man Who Loved Children, is largely based on her own childhood, and was first published in 1940. It was not until the poet Randall Jarrell wrote the introduction for a new American edition in 1965 that the novel began to receive a larger audience.
Our Pick
In 2005, the magazine Time included The Man Who Loved Children in their “100 Best Novels from 1923–2005”, and in 2010 American author Jonathan Franzen hailed the novel as a “masterpiece” in The New York Times. Stead’s Letty Fox: Her Luck, often regarded as an equally fine novel, was officially banned in Australia for several years because it was considered amoral and salacious.
Click here to go to Christina Stead’s author page
43. Christos Tsiolkas
Christos Tsiolkas was born in Melbourne in 1965. Loaded, his first novel, was published in 1995 and later made into the award-winning film Head On. In 1996 he collaborated with Sasha Soldatow on the dialogue Jump Cuts. His novel The Jesus Man was published in 1999.
Our Pick
He is the author of several plays including Who’s Afraid of the Working Class?, Dead Caucasians and Non Parlo di Salo, co-written with Spiro Economopoulos.
His critically acclaimed novel Dead Europe was published in 2005 and in 2008 he reached bestselling status with the bold The Slap which won the Commonwealth Writers Prize and was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award.
Click here to go to Christos Tsiolkas’ author page
42. Rachael Treasure
Rachael Treasure currently lives in southern rural Tasmania with her two young children, Rosie and Charlie. Her three novels, Jillaroo, The Stockmen, and The Rouseabout, have all been bestsellers in Australia, selling more than 100,000 combined copies by the end of 2007. in 2008 Random House signed her to a 4 book contract for British release.
Our Pick
A former jillaroo and reporter for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on rural affairs, she is a passionate working dog trainer and in 2007 received Tasmania’s rural woman of the year award.
Click here to go to Rachael Treasure’s author page
41. Morris Gleitzman
Morris Gleitzman grew up in England and came to Australia when he was sixteen. He was a frozen-chicken thawer, sugar-mill rolling-stock unhooker, fashion-industry trainee, student, department-store Santa, TV producer, newspaper columnist and screenwriter until he wrote his first children’s novel in 1993.
Our Pick
He is now one of the world’s best-known and loved children’s authors. Gleitzman tackles tough subjects in a funny and offbeat way . He has never set out to write “issues books” and says that his writing is as much for himself as for his readers.
Click here to go to Morris Gleitzman’s author page
Don’t forget to come back tomorrow at midday as we continue to countdown to Australia’s Favourite Novelist!
About the Contributor
Andrew Cattanach
Andrew Cattanach is a regular contributor to The Booktopia Blog. He has been shortlisted for The Age Short Story Prize and was named a finalist for the 2015 Young Bookseller of the Year Award. He enjoys reading, writing and sleeping, though finds it difficult to do them all at once.
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Bestsellers: RecipeTin Eats and The 156-Storey Treehouse score highly with readers! 
Read a Q&A with Andy Griffiths! 
Best of 2019: Junior Fiction
Comments
January 22, 2013 at 9:49 am
Di Morrissey and Peter Temple were a surprise – they sell very well at my shop.
January 22, 2013 at 3:27 pm
How wonderful to see Rachael Treasure there!