AustLit
BiographyHistory
Bio changes summary
Trent Dalton has been a feature writer for the Courier-Mail. His journalism has been nominated for and won a range of awards both in Australia and internationally, including a 2015 Walkley Award.
He has also written screenplays, gaining an AFI nomination for 2010's Glen Owen Dodds.
His debut novel, Boy Swallows Universe, was released in June 2018.
Most Referenced Works
Personal Awards
- 2015 winner Walkley Award — Print/Text News Report The Weekend Australian Magazine, “The Ghosts of Murray Street”
Awards for Works
-
y
Love Stories
London
:
Fourth Estate
,
2021
22123742
2021
selected work
autobiography
biography
'Trent Dalton, Australia's best-loved writer, goes out into the world and asks a simple, direct question: 'Can you please tell me a love story?'
'A blind man yearns to see the face of his wife of thirty years. A divorced mother has a secret love affair with a travelling priest. A widower miraculously finds a three-minute video recorded by his wife before she died. A tree lopper's heart falls in a forest. A working mum contemplates taking the photographs of her late husband down from the fridge. A girl writes her last letter to the man she loves, then sets it on fire. An ageing gigolo regrets the one that got away. A palliative care nurse helps a dying woman converse with the angel at the end of her bed. A renowned 100-year-old scientist ponders the one great earthly puzzle he was never able to solve: 'What is love?'
'Endless stories. Human stories. Love stories.
'Inspired by a personal moment of profound love and generosity, bestselling author – and one of Australia's finest journalists – Trent Dalton spent two months in 2021 pounding city pavements, speaking to Australians from all walks of life and asking them one simple and direct question: 'Can you please tell me a love story?' For two straight weeks he sat at a desk with a sky-blue 1960s Olivetti typewriter, on the bustling corner of Adelaide and Albert streets, Brisbane, with a sign saying, 'Sentimental writer collecting love stories. Do you have one to share?'
'The result is Love Stories – a warm, wise, poignant, funny and moving book about love in all its guises, told by Australians from all corners of the country and the world, including stories, observations and reflections on lovers in parks; people in cemeteries, hospital wards, pubs and bingo halls; and newlyweds walking out of registry offices. There will be stories of people falling into love, falling out of love, and never letting go of the loved ones in their hearts. And woven through it all will be remembrances of Trent's own special moments, and of the people whose love stories have made him the man and writer he is today.
'A heartfelt, deep, funny, wise and tingly tribute to the greatest thing we will never understand and the only thing we will ever really need: love.' (Publication summary)
- 2022 longlisted Indie Awards — Nonfiction
-
y
All Our Shimmering Skies
Sydney
:
Fourth Estate
,
2020
18652700
2020
single work
novel
historical fiction
'The bestselling author of Boy Swallows Universe, Trent Dalton, returns with All Our Shimmering Skies - a glorious novel destined to become another Australian classic.
'Darwin, 1942, and as Japanese bombs rain overhead, motherless Molly Hook, the gravedigger’s daughter, turns once again to the sky for guidance. She carries a stone heart inside a duffel bag next to the map that leads to Longcoat Bob, the deep country sorcerer who put a curse on her family. By her side are the most unlikely travelling companions: a razor-tongued actress named Greta and a fallen Japanese fighter pilot named Yukio. ‘Run, Molly, run,’ says the daytime sky. Run to the vine forests. Run to northern Australia’s wild and magical monsoon lands. Run to friendship. Run to love. Run. Because the graverobber’s coming, Molly, and the night-time sky is coming with him. So run, Molly, run.
'All Our Shimmering Skies is a story about gifts that fall from the sky, curses we dig from the earth and the secrets we bury inside ourselves. It is an odyssey of true love and grave danger; of the darkness and the light; of bones and blue skies. A buoyant, beautiful and magical novel abrim with warmth, wit and wonder, a love letter to Australia and the art of looking up.' (Publication summary)
- 2021 longlisted Voss Literary Prize
- 2021 shortlisted Queensland Literary Awards — The Courier-Mail People's Choice Queensland Book of the Year
- 2021 shortlisted Booksellers Choice Award — Adult Fiction Book of the Year
- 2021 winner APA Book Design Awards — Best Designed Commercial Fiction Cover designed by Darren Holt
- 2021 shortlisted Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) — Australian Literary Fiction Book of the Year
- 2021 shortlisted Indie Awards — Fiction
- 2020 shortlisted Dymocks Book of the Year
-
y
Boy Swallows Universe
Sydney South
:
Fourth Estate
,
2018
13529833
2018
single work
novel
'Brisbane, 1983: A lost father, a mute brother, a mum in jail, a heroin dealer for a stepfather and a notorious crim for a babysitter. It's not as if Eli's life isn't complicated enough already. He's just trying to follow his heart, learning what it takes to be a good man, but life just keeps throwing obstacles in the way - not least of which is Tytus Broz, legendary Brisbane drug dealer.
'But if Eli's life is about to get a whole lot more serious. He's about to fall in love. And, oh yeah, he has to break into Boggo Road Gaol on Christmas Day, to save his mum.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
- 2020 longlisted International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
- 2018 winner Dymocks Book of the Year
- 2019 longlisted International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
- 2019 shortlisted Voss Literary Prize
- 2019 shortlisted Queensland Literary Awards — Queensland Premier's Award for a Work of State Significance
- 2019 finalist Queensland Literary Awards — The Courier-Mail People's Choice Queensland Book of the Year
- 2019 shortlisted Colin Roderick Award
- 2019 winner Australian Booksellers Association Awards — Booksellers Choice Award
- 2019 longlisted Miles Franklin Literary Award
- 2019 winner Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) — Australian Book of the Year
- 2019 winner New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards — People's Choice Award
- 2019 shortlisted Russell Prize for Humour Writing
- 2019 winner Indie Awards — Book of the Year
- 2019 winner Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) — The Matt Richell Award for New Writer
- 2019 winner Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) — Australian Literary Fiction Book of the Year
- 2019 winner New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards — Glenda Adams Award for New Writing
- 2019 shortlisted New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards — Christina Stead Prize for Fiction
- 2019 winner MUD Literary Prize
- 2019 winner Indie Awards — Debut Fiction