She has published books as Sonya Hartnett, S. L. Hartnett, and Cameron S. Redfern.^[1][6]

Writer

She 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).^[1][8] For years she has written about one novel annually.^[6] 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 native land.^[2]

According to the National Library of Australia, "The novel for which Hartnett has achieved the most critical (and controversial) acclaim was Sleeping Dogs" (1995). "A book involving incest between brother and sister and often critiqued as 'without hope', Sleeping Dogs generated enormous discussion both within Australia and overseas."^[1]

Many of Hartnett's books have been published in the UK and in North America. For Thursday's Child (2000, UK 2002), 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. In 2008 she won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award which is administered by the Swedish Arts Council.^[3]

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.^[15] 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".^[2] 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.^[4]

Bibliography

Fiction

Picture books

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

Junior fiction

• Sadie and Ratz (2008)
• The Children of the King (2012)
  • Won – CBCA Younger Readers (2013)
  • Shortlisted – Prime Minister's Literary Awards Young Adult Fiction (2013)

Teen and young adult fiction

• Wilful Blue (1994)
  • produced as a play and performed at the Victorian Arts Centre
  • Won – IBBY (International Board on Books for Young People) Ena Noel Award (1996)
• Sleeping Dogs (1995)
  • Won – Miles Franklin Kathleen Mitchell Award (Australia) (1996)
  • Won – Victorian Premier's Literary Award Sheaffer Pen Prize (1996)
  • Honour – CBCA Older Readers (1996)
  • Shortlisted – New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards (1996)
• The Devil Latch (1996)
• Princes (1997)
  • Shortlisted – CBCA Older Readers (1999)
• All My Dangerous Friends (1998)
• Stripes of the Sidestep Wolf (1999) (first published in the UK in 2004)
  • Shortlisted – CBCA Older Readers (2002)
• Thursday's Child (2000)
  • Won – Guardian Children's Fiction Prize
  • Won – Aurealis Award, Best Young Adult Novel (Australian speculative fiction)
  • Shortlisted – Australian Publishers Association Award (2000)
  • Shortlisted – CBCA Older Readers (2001)
  • Shortlisted – New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards (2001)
  • Shortlisted – Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize (2002)
• Forest (2001)
  • Won – CBCA Older Readers (2002)
• The Silver Donkey (2004)
  • Won – Courier Mail award for young readers (2005)
  • Won – CBCA Younger Readers (2005)
  • Won - Andersen Award (Italy) Best Book for readers 9-12 (2010)^[5][6]
• Surrender (2005):
  • Honour – Michael L. Printz Award (2007)
  • Shortlisted – The Age Book of the Year Award (2005)
  • Shortlisted – Aurealis Award Fantasy Division (2005)
  • Shortlisted – Commonwealth Writers Prize (South East Asia and South Pacific Region, Best Book) (2006)
• The Ghost's Child (2007)
  • Won – CBCA Older Readers (2008)
• Butterfly (2009)
• The Midnight Zoo (2010)
  • Shortlisted – CILIP Carnegie Medal (2012)

Adult fiction

• Trouble All the Way (1984)
• Sparkle and Nightflower (1986)
• The Glass House (1990)
• Black Foxes (1996)
• {{cite book |authors=Earls, Nick, Sonya Hartnett and Heide Seaman |title=There must be lions : stories about mental illness |location=Charnwood, A.C.T. |publisher=Ginninderra Press |year=1998 |}}
• Of a Boy (adult, 2002) (first published in the UK as What the Birds See in 2003)
  • Won – The Age Book of the Year Award (2003)
  • Won – Commonwealth Writers Prize (South East Asia and South Pacific Region, Best Book) (2003)
  • Shortlisted – Miles Franklin Award (2003)
  • Shortlisted – New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards (2003)
• Landscape with Animals (2006), as by Cameron S. Redfern
• Golden Boys (2014)
  • Shortlisted - Miles Franklin Award (2015)
  • Shortlisted - Christine Stead Prize for Fiction (2015)
  • Shortlisted - Victorian Premier's Literary Awards (2015)
  • Shortlisted - New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards (2015)

Memoirs

• Life in Ten Houses: A Memoir (2013)

Critical studies and reviews of Hartnett's work

• {{cite journal |author=Case, Jo |authorlink= |authormask= |date=Sep 2014 |title=Bearing witness |department= |journal=Australian Book Review |volume=364 |issue= |pages=13 |url= |}} Review of Golden boys.

See also

References