Oz Lit for Dummies – Part 2

Whenever Australia signs an international trade deal, invades a sovereign nation or wins lots of medals commentators boast that although small, ‘Australian punches above its weight’. The Oscars bring out the worst in our media when it comes to these kinds of statements. It only takes one Australian nomination in any given year for the papers to print breathless stories about ‘The Aussie Invasion of Hollywood.’ It helps, of course, that we claim for ourselves any successful person with even the most tenuous links to Australia. (Does anyone except a handful of Australian entertainment reporters consider Mel Gibson an Aussie? And, you know, even if he is, can’t we pretend he’s not?)

With this in mind, I give you a list of recent internationally acclaimed ‘Australian’ novels:

Vernon God Little by D.B.C. Pierre – 2003 Man Booker Prize

The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard– 2003 National Book Critics’ Circle Award

The Hamilton Case by Michelle de Kretser– 2003 Commonwealth Writers Prize Best Book Award and British Society of Authors 2004 Encore Award.

Dirt Music by Tim Winton – Shortlisted for 2002 Booker Prize

Gould’s Book of Fish by Richard Flanagan – Commonwealth Writers Prize 2002

True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey – 2001 Booker Prize

The Idea of Perfection by Kate Grenville – Orange Prize 2001

Also you may think 2003 Nobel Prize for Literature winner J.M. Coetzee is South African but he moved here a couple of years ago, so he’s ours now too. That makes two Nobel Prize winning Australian writers (The first was Patrick White in 1973 ) Two Nobel Prizes for Literature in 30 years with a population of under 20 million? Punching above our weight here, I tell ya.