Australian Authors Trivia Quiz

Answer: Patrick White

Patrick White won the 1973 Nobel Prize for Literature. He was a prolific short story writer as well as a novelist, and his most famous books would probably be 'The Tree of Man' (1955) and 'Voss' (1957).

Answer: Thomas Keneally

Thomas Keneally has won the Miles Franklin Award in consecutive years 1967 and 1968. In 1982 he won the Booker Prize for 'Schindler's Ark' which Stephen Spielberg filmed under the title 'Schindler's List' in 1993. In 1983 he was awarded the Order of Australia for his services to Australian Literature.

Answer: Miles Franklin

The book of course was "My Brilliant Career", and it was the first of many novels by young Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin (1879-1954). At the turn of the century it was very difficult for a woman to gain recognition as a writer in Australia. She inserted a question mark after "Brilliant" to draw attention to this fact, but most editions of the book do not include the question mark.

In 1946 she wrote a novel called 'My Career Goes Bung'. Nancy Keesing and CJ Dennis also have literary awards named in their honour.

Answer: David Malouf

David Malouf also wrote 'Fly Away Peter', 'The Great World' and 'Conversations at Curlow Creek'. He won the Miles Franklin Award for 'The Great World' in 1991, and 'Remembering Babylon' was short listed for the Booker Prize in 1994.

Answer: Kate Grenville

Kate Grenville has created some very memorable characters, and one of my favourite books is 'Lilian's Story' which is about an eccentric bag lady living on the streets of Sydney. 'The Secret River' won the Commonwealth Prize for Literature, the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction (the NSW Premier's Prize), the Community Relations Commission Prize, the Booksellers' Choice Award, the Fellowship of Australian Writers Prize and the Publishing Industry Book of the Year Award (source: http://www.users.bigpond.com/kgrenville/homepage.html)

Answer: Mandy Sayer

In her memoir, 'Dreamtime Alice' Mandy Sayer recalls tap dancing with her father, a jazz drummer, on the streets of New York and New Orleans. She also wrote 'The Cross', which has an unsolved Kings Cross murder as its subject matter.

Answer: Gabrielle Lord

One of Gabrielle Lord's strengths is her forensic research and she is often compared to Patricia Cornwell. One of my favourite of her books is 'Whipping Boy', a very disturbing story of paedophilia and child abuse.

Answer: Elizabeth Jolley

Elizabeth Jolley's books are renowned for their black humour and quirky characters. She has won many awards for her novels, including the Miles Franklin for 'The Well'. 'My Father's Moon' (1989) is believed to be an autobiographical novel.

Answer: Peter Carey

'The True History of the Kelly Gang' (2000) by Peter Carey is a masterpiece. The narrator is Ned Kelly, Australia's most famous outlaw. Other novels by Peter Carey, such as 'Oscar and Lucinda', 'Illywacker', and 'Bliss' have been made into feature films.

Answer: Tim Winton

'Cloudstreet' (1991) by Tim Winton is about two working-class families in the 1950s in Perth, who share a house/corner shop. It toured Australia as a five and a half hour play in 2001. Many aspects of 'Cloudstreet' are autobiographical - for example, Tim Winton nearly drowned as a child and he had a grandmother who lived in a tent behind a shop in suburban Perth - and he thought everyone's grandmother lived in a tent! Source: Andrew Denton's Enough Rope interview with Tim Winton October 2004. Tim Winton has gone on to bigger and better things, his most recent being a collection of stories in a book called 'The Turning'.