Tim Winton

Timothy John Winton (born 4 August 1960) is an Australian writer and environmental activist. He has written novels, children's books, non-fiction books and short stories.

His most well-known novel, and the one that launched his career, was Cloudstreet, in 1991. He is also known for the novels Dirt Music (2001) and Breath (2009), as well as collections of short fiction, such as The Turning (2004), and several works of children's and young adult fiction, including Lockie Leonard, Human Torpedo. His latest novel is the 2024 climate fiction novel Juice. Many of his novels and stories have been adapted for stage and screen, and have been translated into many languages. Winton has also written some non-fiction, including his 2016 memoir The Boy Behind the Curtain.

Winton is actively involved in the Australian environmental movement, and has roles in a number of conservation organisations. A new species of fish, Winton's grunter, was named after him after its discovery was announced in 2016. A three-part series written and narrated by him, called Ningaloo Nyinggulu, aired on ABC Television in 2023.

In 1997, he was named a Living Treasure by the National Trust of Australia, and, among many other awards, has won the Miles Franklin Award four times. He was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 2023.

Early life and education Timothy John Winton was born on 4 August 1960 in Subiaco, an inner western suburb of Perth, Western Australia. He grew up in the northern Perth suburb of Karrinyup, before he moved with his family to the regional city of Albany at the age of 12.

Career Writing While still a student, Winton wrote his first novel, An Open Swimmer, which won The Australian/Vogel Literary Award in 1981, launching his writing career. He has stated that he wrote "the best part of three books while at university".

He has continued to publish fiction, plays and non-fiction material.

Style and themes Winton draws his prime inspiration from landscape and place, mostly coastal Western Australia. In a 2008 interview about his 2009 novel Breath, he said:"The place comes first. If the place isn't interesting to me then I can't feel it. I can't feel any people in it. I can't feel what the people are on about or likely to get up to". In an interview about his 2019 novel The Shepherd's Hut, he repeated "The place comes first, as it always does, and the landscape determines the parameters of the story; it throws the people up (one way or another) and they're what and who I have to work with. I guess by now I'm used to submitting to the environmental logic underpinning it all. The figures literally emerge from the landscape".

Winton's works often include underlying themes of violence, desire and belonging. as it takes a look at the impact of climate change.

Organisations Winton is actively involved in the Australian environmental movement. He has roles in a number of conservation organisations, in particular, the Australian Marine Conservation Society. He was vice-president of the WA branch from 1998, and has been a national patron since 2006. a campaign against shark finning in 2008, and the Protect Ningaloo campaign, since 2018.

Other roles in conservation organisations have included: Advocate, Environmental Defenders Office, current as of 2023 and produced by Artemis Media and Matter of Factual. It was nominated for an AACTA Award for Best Documentary or Factual Program, and won Innovation Award for Television in the Western Australia Screen Culture Awards as well as Best Natural History or Wildlife program at the Asian TV Awards in Ho Chi Minh City. It is available for viewing on ABC iview.

Recognition and honours

Winton's books have been well reviewed by critics and many have been shortlisted for or won awards. Several novels and short stories have been adapted for stage and screen. All his books are still in print and have been published in many different languages. His work has also been successfully adapted for stage, screen and radio. He won the Miles Franklin Award a record four times: for Shallows (1984), Cloudstreet (1992), Dirt Music (2002) and Breath (2009). and was in January 2001 was awarded the Centenary Medal "service to Australian society and literature". In 1999, he received a Friends of the National Library of Australia Celebration Award. In 2009, his alma mater Curtin University named a lecture theatre in his honour. It was officially named "Winton's grunter", or Hannia wintoni, in 2020. The fish is a 25-centimetre-long grunter found in a Prince Regent River tributary.

Winton was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia in the 2023 King's Birthday Honours for "distinguished service to literature as an author and novelist, to conservation, and to environmental advocacy". In the same year, he was awarded the ABIA Lloyd O'Neil Award for outstanding service to the Australian book industry.

In 2024, Winton was the subject of a painted portrait by Sydney-based artist Laura Jones, which won the Archibald Prize that year. Having an interest in how humans interact with their environment and being an admirer of Winton, she was inspired to paint him after watching his 2023 TV documentary Ningaloo Nyinggulu and by his speech urging artists to use their work to critique the lack of action by governments on climate change,

Tim Winton Young Writers Award (1992–2022) The Tim Winton Young Writers Award was launched in 1992 and thence sponsored annually by the City of Subiaco until 2022. Winton was patron of the award, and handed out the awards at a ceremony.

The award recognised young writers in the Perth metropolitan area, and is open to short-story writers of primary school and secondary school age. Three compilations have been published: Destination Unknown (2001) Life Bytes (2002), and Hatched: Celebrating Twenty Years of the Tim Winton Award for Young Writers (2013). The latter features the winning story from each year of the award from 1993 to 2012. In 2022, there were over 1300 entries. However, it was announced in January 2026 that Silvey would have no further association with the awards, after Silvey had been charged with possessing and distributing child exploitation material.

Personal life Winton met his wife Denise when they were children at school. When he was 18 and recovering from a car accident, they reconnected as she was a student nurse. They married when Winton was 21 and she was 20, and had three children together. except to promote a new book or to support an environmental issue.

Winton has lived in Italy, France, Ireland and Greece. As of 2016 he was living in Western Australia.