Sonya Hartnett

Sonya Louise Hartnett (born 23 March 1968) is an Australian author of fiction for adults, young adults, and children. She has been called "the finest Australian writer of her generation".

Many of Hartnett's books have been published in the UK and in North America. For Thursday's Child (2000; 2002 in the UK), 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.

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.

Awards and honours In 2000 and 2003, The Sydney Morning Herald named Hartnett one of their Young Novelists of the Year.

In 2008, Hartnett received the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, which annually honours an author of children's books whose "a body of work known for its unflinching focus on the toughest aspects of life."

In 2016, Shelf Awareness included Golden Boys on their list of the best teen novels of the year.