2011 in Australian literature

This article presents a list of the historical events and publications of Australian literature during 2011.

• Four authors are named in the Queen's Birthday Honours: Peter FitzSimons, Susanne Gervay, Roland Perry, and Chris Wallace-Crabbe^[1]
• Thomas Keneally donates his personal library to the Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts^[2]
• Australian libraries and library associations join together to make 2012 the National Year of Reading^[3]
• Australian Booksellers Association (ABA) declares Saturday, 20 August 2011, the inaugural National Bookshop Day^[4]
• Final issue of the "Australian Literary Review" to be published in October 2011^[5]
• Hannie Rayson is the first Australian to be awarded a commission with New York’s Manhattan Theatre Club^[6]
• Friends and family of biographer Hazel Rowley establish funds to commemorate Rowley’s life and her writing legacy via the Hazel Rowley Literary Fund^[7]
• Alison Lester and Boori Monty Pryor are appointed to be Australia’s first Children’s Laureates^[8]
• The University of Technology Sydney (UTS) appoints Robert Adamson to hold the inaugural CAL Chair in Australian Poetry^[9]

• Tony Birch – Blood
• Geraldine Brooks – Caleb's Crossing^[10]
• Annah Faulkner – The Beloved^[11]
• Anna Funder – All That I Am
• Kate Grenville – Sarah Thornhill
• Gail Jones – Five Bells
• Jeanine Leane – Purple Threads
• Gillian Mears – Foal's Bread
• Alex Miller – Autumn Laing
• Frank Moorhouse – Cold Light
• Favel Parrett – Past The Shallows
• Elliot Perlman – The Street Sweeper^[12]
• Craig Sherborne – The Amateur Science of Love^[13]
• Rohan Wilson – The Roving Party
• Charlotte Wood – Animal People^[14]

• Alexandra Adornetto – Hades
• Em Bailey – Shift
• J. C. Burke – Pig Boy
• Isobelle Carmody – The Sending
• Ursula Dubosarsky – The Golden Day
• Scott Gardner – The Dead I Know
• Steven Herrick – Black Painted Fingernails
• Andrew McGahan – The Coming of the Whirlpool
• Melina Marchetta – Froi of the Exiles
• Vikki Wakefield – All I Ever Wanted
• Scott Westerfeld – Goliath

• Max Barry – Machine Man
• Trudi Canavan – The Rogue
• Greg Egan – The Clockwork Rocket
• Will Elliott – Shadow^[15]
• Kim Falconer – Road to the Soul^[16]
• Pamela Freeman – Ember and Ash^[17]
• Richard Harland – Liberator^[18]
• Glenda Larke – Stormlord's Exile^[19]
• Kim Westwood – The Courier's New Bicycle

• Alan Carter – Prime Cut^[20]
• Peter Corris – Follow the Money^[21]
• Garry Disher – Whispering Death^[22]
• Kerry Greenwood – Cooking the Books^[23]
• Stuart Littlemore – Harry Curry: Counsel of Choice^[24]
• Barry Maitland – Chelsea Mansions^[25]
• Kel Robertson – Rip Off^[26]
• Michael Robotham – The Wreckage^[27]

• Ali Alizadeh – Ashes in the Air
• Joanne Burns – Amphora
• Barry Hill – Lines for Birds: Poems and Paintings
• John Kinsella – Armour
• Geoffrey Lehmann and Robert Gray – Australian Poetry Since 1788 (edited)
• Jaya Savige – Surface to Air

• Julian Assange – Julian Assange: The Unauthorised Autobiography
• A. J. Brown – Michael Kirby: Paradoxes and Principles
• Eileen Chanin – Book Life: The Life and Times of David Scott Mitchell 1836–1907
• Raimond Gaita – After Romulus
• Mark McKenna – An Eye for Eternity: The Life of Manning Clark
• Susan Mitchell – Tony Abbott: A Man's Man
• Christine Nixon – Fair Cop
• Sue Pieters-Hawke – Hazel: My Mother's Story
• Alice Pung – Her Father's Daughter
• David Robert Walker – Not Dark Yet: A Personal History
• Sarah Watt, William McInnes – Worse Things Happen at Sea

• 1 March – Hazel Rowley, author (born 1951)^[51]
• 15 June – Anne Godfrey-Smith, poet and theatre producer/director (born 1921)^[52]
• 20 June – T. A. G. Hungerford, author (born 1915)^[53]
• 2 September – Bernard Smith, art historian (born 1916)
• 27 September – Sara Douglass, author (born 1957)^[54]
• 4 October – Di Gribble, editor and publisher (born 1942)
• 8 December – Zelman Cowen, jurist (born 1919)

Unknown date

• May – Robert J. Merritt, playwright (born 1945)

• 2011 in Australia
• 2011 in literature
• 2011 in poetry
• List of years in Australian literature
• List of years in literature
• List of Australian literary awards