Australian literature

Australian literature begins with the letters, journals, and memoirs of early settlers and explorers. The first poet of note was Charles Harpur (1813–1868); idioms and rhythms typical of the country were developed by, among others, Henry Kendall (1841–1882) and Andrew Barton (Banjo) Paterson. More recent poets include Christopher Brennan and Judith Wright, Kenneth Slessor, R D (Robert David) Fitzgerald (1902–1987), A D (Alec Derwent) Hope (1907–2000), James McAuley (1917–1976), and poet and novelist David Malouf. Among early Australian novelists are Marcus Clarke, Rolfe Boldrewood, and Henry Handel Richardson. Striking a harsh vein in contemporary themes are the dramatist Ray Lawler and novelist Patrick White; the latter received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1973. Thomas Keneally won the 1982 Booker Prize for Schindler's Ark.

The growth of Australian cinema in the 1970s and 1980s helped and benefited from a late flowering of Australian drama. Aboriginal culture, used as an imaginative resource by nationalist writers between the wars, has given rise both to translated collections of oral poetry, myth, and narrative, and to a modern, politically radical, tradition of Aboriginal literature in English.