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Tim Winton Tim Winton i(A28121 works by) (a.k.a. Timothy John Winton)
Born: Established: 1960 Karrinyup, Stirling area, Northern Perth, Perth, Western Australia, ;
Gender: Male
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BiographyHistory

Born in Karrinyup, Western Australia, Tim Winton completed his high school education at Albany. Determined to be a writer from an early age, Winton subsequently studied creative writing at the West Australian Institute of Technology (now Curtin University). He became a professional writer and household name when, at the age of 21, he shared first prize in the 1981 Australian/Vogel National Literary Award for a manuscript that became An Open Swimmer (1982).

Several other books followed in the 1980s and he won his first Miles Franklin Award in 1984 for Shallows. He travelled overseas with his wife and young family in the late 1980s, but his work retained a strong attachment to the coastal regions of Western Australia, especially the areas around which he grew up. He returned to Western Australia to purchase a house on the coast and won his second Miles Franklin Literary Award in 1992, for Cloudstreet.

Nearly twenty years later, he was to adapt this novel for the screen with American writer Ellen Fontana, as the three-part series Cloudstreet, which won him a Western Australian Premier's Book Awards (Scripts) and drew nominations for both AACTA Awards and Logie Awards.

Winton has written a number of children's books; his award-winning 'Lockie Leonard Series' (published between 1990 and 1997) was adapted for television in 2007 as Lockie Leonard.

Other adaptations of Winton's works include John Ruane's film of That Eye, the Sky in 1994 and James Bogle's film of In the Winter Dark in 1998. His works Breath and The Turning have also been adapted to the screen more recently.

Winton has continued to draw international readerships and awards. His novels have been published in England and the United States of America, translated into a number of languages and adapted for the stage, television, and film. Among many other awards, The Riders was short-listed for the Booker Prize and he received his third Miles Franklin Literary Award for Dirt Music in 2002 and his fourth for Breath in 2008.

A passionate campaigner for social and environmental causes, Winton has held the post of vice-president of the Australian Marine Conservation Society and was the inaugural winner of the ASA Medal in recognition of his contribution to saving Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia. His autobiographical meditation, Land's Edge (1993), was accompanied by the photography of Trish Ainslie and Roger Garwod, and he has also contributed text and memoirs to several other books of photography, including Bill Bachmann's Local Colour (1994) and Richard Woldendrop's Down to Earth (1999). In 2016, he had a species of fish from the Kimberley region named after him, and in March 2017, he was named patron of the new Native Australian Animals Trust.

Most recently, Winton has published the autobiographical works Island Home: A Landscape Memoir and The Boy Behind the Curtain.

Exhibitions

18387981
6646471

Most Referenced Works

Notes

  • Tim Winton was included in the Bulletin's '100 Most Influential Australians' list in 2006.
  • Voted number 5 in the Booktopia Top 50 Favourite Australian Authors for 2018

Personal Awards

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon The Shepherd's Hut London : Hamish Hamilton , 2018 11859330 2018 single work novel

'The Shepherd’s Hut follows Jaxie, who flees his sleepy hometown and abusive father and heads north ‘for the only person in the world who understands him’. Jaxie ‘traverses the vast, bare West Australian wheatbelt, heading towards the abandoned goldfields, staying out of sight long enough to reach the refuge of the salt country at the edge of the desert’. ' (Publication summary)

2020 longlisted International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
2019 winner Voss Literary Prize
2019 shortlisted Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) Australian Literary Fiction Book of the Year
2019 shortlisted New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Christina Stead Prize for Fiction
2019 shortlisted Indie Awards Fiction
2018 shortlisted Queensland Literary Awards Fiction Book Award
y separately published work icon The Boy Behind the Curtain Melbourne : Penguin , 2016 9481193 2016 selected work autobiography essay

'The remarkable true stories in The Boy Behind the Curtain reveal an intimate and rare view of Tim Winton’s imagination at work and play.

'A chronicler of sudden turnings, brutal revelations and tender sideswipes, Tim Winton has always been in the business of trouble. In his novels chaos waits in the wings and ordinary people are ambushed by events and emotions beyond their control. But as these extraordinarily powerful memoirs show, the abrupt and the headlong are old familiars to the author himself, for in many ways his has been a life shaped by havoc.

'In The Boy Behind the Curtain Winton reflects on the accidents, traumatic and serendipitous, that have influenced his view of life and fuelled his distinctive artistic vision. On the unexpected links between car crashes and religious faith, between surfing and writing, and how going to the wrong movie at the age of eight opened him up to a life of the imagination. And in essays on class, fundamentalism, asylum seekers, guns and the natural world he reveals not only the incidents and concerns that have made him the much-loved writer he is, but some of what unites the life and the work.

'By turns impassioned, funny, joyous, astonishing, this is Winton’s most personal book to date, an insight into the man who’s held us enthralled for three decades and helped us reshape our view of ourselves. Behind it all, from risk-taking youth to surprise-averse middle age, has been the crazy punt of staking everything on becoming a writer.' (Publication summary)

2018 winner Festival Awards for Literature (SA) Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature South Australian Literary Awards Award for Non-Fiction
2018 shortlisted National Biography Award
2016 winner The Fellowship of Australian Writers Victoria Inc. National Literary Awards FAW Excellence in Non-fiction Award
2018 shortlisted New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction
2017 longlisted Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) Australian Biography of the Year
2017 longlisted Indie Awards Nonfiction
form y separately published work icon Breath ( dir. Simon Baker ) Australia : See Pictures Gran Via Productions Breath Productions , 2016 8569342 2016 single work film/TV

'Based on Tim Winton’s award-winning novel set in mid-70s coastal Australia. Two teenage boys, hungry for discovery, form an unlikely bond with a reclusive surfer and his mysterious wife. The boys are driven to take risks that will have a profound and lasting impact on their lives.'

Source: Screen Australia.

2019 nominated AFCA Film Awards Best Director
2019 nominated AFCA Film Awards Best Screenplay
2019 nominated AFCA Film Awards Best Film
2018 winner Film Critics Circle of Australia Best Screenplay - Original or Adapted
2019 nominated Film Critics Circle of Australia Best Director
2018 nominated Film Critics Circle of Australia Best Film
2018 nominated Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards Best Adapted Screenplay
2018 nominated Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards Best Film

Known archival holdings

National Library of Australia (ACT)
Last amended 30 May 2019 14:02:29
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