Sonya Hartnett Explained

Sonya Louise Hartnett (born 23 March 1968)^[1] is an Australian author of fiction for adults, young adults, and children. She has been called "the finest Australian writer of her generation". For her career contribution to "children's and young adult literature in the broadest sense" Hartnett won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award from the Swedish Arts Council in 2008, one of the largest cash prizes in children's literature.

She has published books as Sonya Hartnett, S. L. Hartnett, and Cameron S. Redfern.

Personal life and education

Hartnett was born 23 March 1968, in Melbourne, Australia to Philip Joseph and Virginia Mary Hartnett. In 1988, she received a Bachelor of Arts from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.

Career

Hartnett was thirteen years old when she wrote her first novel and fifteen when it was published for the adult market in Australia, Trouble All the Way (Adelaide: Rigby Publishers, 1984).^[2] For years she has written about one novel annually. Although she is often classified as a writer of young adult fiction, Hartnett does not consider this label entirely accurate: "I've been perceived as a young adult writer whereas my books have never really been young adult novels in the sort of classic sense of the idea." She believes the distinction is not so important in Britain as in her native land.^[3]

According to the National Library of Australia, "The novel for which Hartnett has achieved the most critical (and controversial) acclaim was Sleeping Dogs". The book, which involves incest between siblings, is "often critiqued as 'without hope'" but has "generated enormous discussion both within Australia and overseas."

Many of Hartnett's books have been published in the UK and in North America. For Thursday's Child (2000; 2002 in the UK), she won the annual Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, a once-in-a-lifetime book award judged by a panel of British children's writers. The novel was eligible for such award in 2002 because it was her first publication in the UK. In 2008 she won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award which is administered by the Swedish Arts Council.^[4]

Landscape with Animals controversy

In 2006, Hartnett was involved with some controversy regarding the publication of Landscape with Animals, published under the pseudonym Cameron S. Redfern. The book contains many sex scenes and Hartnett was almost immediately "outed" as the author. She said that she wanted to avoid the book being accidentally shelved with her work for children in libraries and denied that she used a pseudonym to evade responsibility for the work or as a publicity stunt à la Nikki Gemmell's The Bride Stripped Bare. In a review published in The Age, Peter Craven savaged the book describing it as an "overblown little sex shocker", a "tawdry little crotch tickler" and lamented that Hartnett was "too good a writer to put her name to this indigestible hairball of spunk and spite". It was defended vigorously in The Australian by Marion Halligan ("I haven't read many books by Hartnett, but I think this is a much more amazing piece of writing than any of them") who chastised Craven for missing the joke ("How could an experienced critic get that so wrong?") and wonders why female authors writing frankly about sex is so frowned upon.^[5]

Awards and honours

In 2000 and 2003, The Sydney Morning Herald named Hartnett one of their Young Novelists of the Year.^[6]

In 2008, Hartnett received the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, which annually honours an author of children's books whose "a body of work known for its unflinching focus on the toughest aspects of life."^[7]

In 2016, Shelf Awareness included Golden Boys on their list of the best teen novels of the year.^[8]

Awards for Hartnett's writing!Year!Title!Award!Result!Ref.

1996	Sleeping Dogs		Honour
		Kathleen Mitchell Award (Australia)	Winner
		New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards	Shortlist
		Victorian Premier's Literary Awards Sheaffer Pen Prize	Winner
	Willful Blue	IBBY Ena Noel Award (1996)	Winner
1999	Princes		Shortlist
2000		Aurealis Award for Best Young Adult Novel	Winner	[9]
		Australian Publishers Association Award	Shortlist
2001			Shortlist
		New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards	Shortlist
2002	Forest		Winner
	Stripes of the Sidestep Wolf		Shortlist
		Guardian Children's Fiction Prize	Winner
		Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize	Shortlist
2003	Of a Boy		Winner	[10]
		Commonwealth Writers Prize (South East Asia and South Pacific Region, Best Book)	Finalist	[11]
		Miles Franklin Award	Shortlist
		New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards	Shortlist
2005		Courier Mail Award for young readers	Winner
			Winner
	Surrender		Shortlist
		Aurealis Award for Best Fantasy Novel	Shortlist	[12]
2006		Commonwealth Writers Prize (South East Asia and South Pacific Region, Best Book)	Shortlist
2007		COOL Award Fiction for Years 7-9	Winner
	Surrender	Michael L. Printz Award	Honour	[13]
2008	The Ghost's Child		Winner	[14]
2010	Butterfly	Miles Franklin Award	Shortlist	[15]
		Aurealis Award for Best Young Adult Novel	Finalist	[16]
		Andersen Award (Italy) Best Book for readers 9–12	Winner	[17] [18]
2011			Winner	[19]
2012	Come Down, Cat			Honour	[20]
		Prime Minister's Literary Awards for Children's Fiction	Finalist	[21]
			Shortlist	[22]
2013			Winner	[23]
		Prime Minister's Literary Awards Young Adult Fiction	Shortlist	[24]
2015	Golden Boys	Christine Stead Prize for Fiction	Shortlist
		Miles Franklin Award	Shortlist	[25]
		New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards	Shortlist
		Prime Minister's Literary Awards for Fiction	Finalist
		Victorian Premier's Literary Awards	Shortlist
2022	Blue Flower		Shortlist	[26]

Bibliography

Fiction

Picture books

• The Boy and the Toy (2010)
• Come Down, Cat! (2011)
• Blue Flower (2021)

Junior fiction

• The Silver Donkey (2004)
• Sadie and Ratz (2008)
• The Children of the King (2012)

Teen and young adult fiction

• Wilful Blue (1994)
  • produced as a play and performed at the Victorian Arts Centre
• Sleeping Dogs (1995)
• The Devil Latch (1996)
• Princes (1997)
• All My Dangerous Friends (1998)
• Stripes of the Sidestep Wolf (1999) (published in the UK in 2004)
• Thursday's Child (2000) (published in the UK in 2002)
• Forest (2001)
• Surrender (2005)
• The Ghost's Child (2007)
• Butterfly (2009)
• The Midnight Zoo (2010)

Adult fiction

• Trouble All the Way (1984)
• Sparkle and Nightflower (1986)
• The Glass House (1990)
• Black Foxes (1996)
• Book: Earls, Nick . Sonya Hartnett . Heide Seaman . There must be lions : stories about mental illness . Charnwood, A.C.T. . Ginninderra Press . 1998 .
• Of a Boy (adult, 2002) (first published in the UK as What the Birds See in 2003)
• Landscape with Animals (2006), as by Cameron S. Redfern
• Golden Boys (2014)

Memoirs

• Life in Ten Houses: A Memoir (2013)

Critical studies and reviews of Hartnett's work

• Case, Jo . Sep 2014 . [<!--access-date= --> Bearing witness ]. . 364 . 13 . Review of Golden Boys

External links

• • • • Sonya Hartnett at Penguin Books
  • 2002 interview
• 2007 interview

Notes and References

1. Web site: Hartnett, Sonya 1968- . 2023-05-31 . Encyclopedia.com.
2. It has been classified as Juvenile Fiction by some libraries. . Retrieved 3 June 2013.
3. http://www.achuka.co.uk/interviews/hartnett1.php "Sonya Hartnett: London, 2002"
4. Web site: A Sense of Empathy and Involvement - ALMA . www.alma.se . 16 January 2019 . 17 January 2019 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190117070234/http://www.alma.se/en/Laureates/2008-Sonya-Hartnett-/Sonya-Hartnett--award-winner-2008/ . live .
5. Marion Halligan (24 June 2006). "Sex and the singular woman" . The Australian. Quoted in Middlemiss, Weekend Round-Up, June 2006
6. Web site: Sonya Hartnett - Literature . 2023-05-31 . British Council.
7. Web site: 2008-03-13 . Awards: PEN/Faulkner; Astrid Lindgren; Arabic Booker . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20230307135030/https://www.shelf-awareness.com/issue.html?issue=632 . 2023-03-07 . 2023-03-16 . Shelf Awareness.
8. Web site: 2016-12-13 . Our Best Children's & Teen Books of the Year . 2023-05-31 . . 23 January 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230123021907/https://www.shelf-awareness.com/issue.html?issue=2899 . live .
9. Web site: The Locus Index to SF Awards: 2001 Aurealis Awards . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20100424013332/http://www.locusmag.com/SFAwards/Db/Aurealis2001.html . 24 April 2010 . 2010-01-19 . Locus Online.
10. Web site: The Austlit Gateway News September/October 2003 . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20081121212532/http://www.austlit.edu.au/news/newsSeptemberOctober2003 . 21 November 2008 . 21 April 2009.
11. Web site: Commonwealth Writers' Prize Regional Winners 1987–2007 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20071023223729/http://www.commonwealthfoundation.com/uploads/documents/Regional%20Winners%201987-20071.pdf . 23 October 2007 . Commonwealth Foundation.
12. Web site: The Locus Index to SF Awards: 2006 Aurealis Awards . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20100420221639/http://www.locusmag.com/SFAwards/Db/Aurealis2006.html . 20 April 2010 . 2009-11-08 . Locus Online.
13. Web site: Snelson . Karin . Golden Boys . 2023-05-30 . . 1 May 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230501030522/https://www.shelf-awareness.com/readers-issue.html?issue=566#m9914 . live .
14. Web site: BOOK OF THE YEAR 2008 WINNERS . 2023-05-31 . . 22 March 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230322191944/https://www.cbca.org.au/winners-2008 . live .
15. Web site: 2010-04-21 . Awards: Miles Franklin; Locus; PubWest Book Design; Etc. . 2023-05-31 . . 6 May 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210506230629/https://www.shelf-awareness.com/issue.html?issue=1168 . live .
16. Web site: Aurealis Awards Finalists 2010 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20110521042923/http://www.aurealisawards.com/finalists2010.pdf . 21 May 2011 . 2011-03-24 . SpecFaction NSW.
17. Web site: The Silver Donkey . 16 January 2019 . Reading Australia . 16 April 2019 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190416223309/https://readingaustralia.com.au/books/the-silver-donkey/ . live .
18. Web site: Sonya Hartnett . 16 January 2019 . www.sonyahartnett.com.au . 28 March 2019 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190328120309/http://www.sonyahartnett.com.au/awards.html . live .
19. Web site: BOOK OF THE YEAR 2011 WINNERS . 2023-05-31 . . 26 March 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230326175306/https://www.cbca.org.au/winners-2011 . live .
20. Web site: BOOK OF THE YEAR 2012 WINNERS . 2023-05-31 . . 22 March 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230322191854/https://www.cbca.org.au/winners-2012 . live .
21. Web site: 2012 shortlists . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20120602025832/http://www.arts.gov.au/funding/awards/pmla/2012/shortlists . 2012-06-02 . 2023-03-10 . Office for the Arts.
22. Web site: 2012-03-28 . Awards: Miles Franklin Longlist; Carnegie Medal Shortlist . 2023-05-31 . . 6 February 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230206024447/https://www.shelf-awareness.com/issue.html?issue=1702 . live .
23. Web site: Book of the Year: Younger Readers 2013 . 2023-05-31 . . 5 April 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210405180432/https://cbca.org.au/winners-2013 . live .
24. Web site: Prime Minister's Literary Awards – 2013 shortlists . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20161220114503/https://www.arts.gov.au/pm-literary-awards/past-winners-and-shortlists/shortlists/2013-shortlist . 20 December 2016 . 10 December 2016.
25. Web site: 2015-05-19 . Awards: Chautauqua; Ondaatje; Miles Franklin; SCBWI . 2023-05-31 . . 10 June 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20220610004305/https://www.shelf-awareness.com/issue.html?issue=2510 . live .
26. Web site: 2022-03-30 . CBCA 2022 Book of the Year shortlists announced . 2022-03-29 . Books+Publishing . en-AU . 31 March 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20220331191853/https://www.booksandpublishing.com.au/articles/2022/03/30/212257/cbca-2022-book-of-the-year-shortlists-announced/ . live .