Biography

Sonya Hartnett was born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1968. Her first book, Trouble All the Way (1984), was published when she was just fifteen years old, and since then she has written many more books of fiction.

Her novels have been published traditionally as young adult fiction, but her writing often crosses the divide and is also enjoyed by adults.

Her novels include: Wilful Blue (1994), also produced as a play and performed at the Victorian Arts Centre; Sleeping Dogs (1995); Black Foxes (1996), which traces the extraordinary life of Lord Tyrone Sully; and Thursday's Child (2002). Set in the Great Depression, this novel follows the young Harper Flute, as she watches her family's struggle to survive. It won the 2002 Guardian Children's Fiction Prize. What the Birds See (2003), also published in the UK, but published first in Australia as Of A Boy (2000), tells the story of nine-year-old Adrian, who struggles to understand the disappearance of three local children.

In Stripes of the Sidestep Wolf (2004), Satchel O'Rye and Chelsea Piper, marooned in an Australian backwater with the world passing them by, find their own survival becomes inextricably intwined with that of an animal they believe to be the last-ever Tasmanian wolf.

In both 2000 and 2003, Sonya Hartnett was named one of The Sydney Morning Herald Young Novelists of the Year. The Silver Donkey and Surrender  were published in 2004 and 2005 respectively,the latter shortlisted for a 2006 Commonwealth Writers Prize (South East Asia and South Pacific Region Best Book).

Sonya Hartnett's latest novel is The Ghost's Child, shortlisted for the 2008 Commonwealth Writers Prize (South East Asia and South Pacific Region, Best Book). The book was winner of the 2008 Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Older Readers Category.

In the same year, she was awarded the prestigious Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award.

Her latest books is Butterfly.

 

Bibliography

Trouble All the Way   Rigby (Australia), 1984

Sparkle and Nightflower   Rigby (Australia), 1986

The Glass House   Pan Macmillan (Australia), 1990

Wilful Blue   Viking (Australia), 1994

Sleeping Dogs   Viking (Australia), 1995

Black Foxes   Viking (Australia), 1996

The Devil Latch   Viking (Australia), 1996

Princes   Viking (Australia), 1997

All My Dangerous Friends   Viking (Australia), 1998

There Must Be Lions: Stories about Mental Illness   (with Nick Earls and Heide Seaman)   Ginniderra Press (Australia), 1998

Stripes of the Sidestep Wolf   Viking (Australia) (first published UK, Walker, 2004), 1999

Forest   Viking (Australia), 2001

Thursday's Child   Walker Books, 2002

What the Birds See   (first published as "Of a Boy", Viking (Australia), 2000)   Walker Books, 2003

The Silver Donkey   Viking, 2004

Surrender   Walker Books, 2005

The Ghost's Child   Walker Books, 2008

Prizes and awards

1992   Writer's Fellowship   (Literature Board of the Australia Council)   Wilful Blue

1996   IBBY (International Board on Books for Young People) Ena Noel Award   Wilful Blue

1996   Miles Franklin Kathleen Mitchell Award (Australia)   Sleeping Dogs

1996   New South Wales State Literary Award   (shortlist)   Sleeping Dogs

1996   Victorian Premier's Literary Award Sheaffer Pen Prize (Australia)   Sleeping Dogs

1999   Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Award: Older Readers   (shortlist)   All My Dangerous Friends

2000   Aurealis Awards: Best Novel in Young Adult Division   Thursday's Child

2000   Australian Publishers Association Award   (shortlist)   Thursday's Child

2000   Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Award: Older Readers   (shortlist)   Stripes of the Sidestep Wolf

2001   Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Award: Older Readers   (shortlist)   Thursday's Child

2001   New South Wales State Literary Award   (shortlist)   Thursday's Child

2002   Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Award: Older Readers   Forest

2002   Guardian Children's Fiction Prize   Thursday's Child

2002   Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize   (shortlist)   Thursday's Child

2003   Commonwealth Writers Prize (South East Asia and South Pacific Region, Best Book)   Of a Boy

2003   Miles Franklin Award (Australia)   (shortlist)   Of A Boy

2003   New South Wales State Literary Award   (shortlist)   Of A Boy

2006   Commonwealth Writers Prize (South East Asia and South Pacific Region, Best Book)   (shortlist)   Surrender

2008   Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (Sweden)

2008   Commonwealth Writers Prize (South East Asia and South Pacific Region, Best Book)   (shortlist)   The Ghost's Child

2008 Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Older Readers Category, The Ghost's Child