Craig Silvey
Born: 1982 Dwellingup, Western Australia
Craig Silvey grew up on an orchard in Dwellingup, a small town in timber and fruit-growing lands in south-west Western Australia.
Silvery wrote his first novel, Rhubarb, when he was nineteen: it was published in 2004. The novel was the inaugural book for the 'One Book' series of events at the 2005 Perth International Arts Festival.
Silvey's next novel, Jasper Jones, was published in 2009. The novel was wildly successful: it won the Australian Book Industry Awards Book of the Year, the Western Australian Premier's Book Awards fiction prize, and two Indie Awards (Book of the Year and Fiction), and was shortlisted and longlisted for a range of other national and international prizes, including the Miles Franklin Award, the Dylan Thomas prize, and the Dublin Literary Award. It was adapted by Kate Mulvany into a play (which was shortlisted for two Helpmann Awards, three Green Room Awards, two Sydney Theatre Awards, and the New South Wales Premier's Prize for Playwrighting), and then by Shaun Grant into a film (which won an AWGIE Award and was nominated for two AACTA Awards and an Asia Pacific Screen Award). As of 2016, Jasper Jones has been released in three editions in Australia, British and American editions, and eleven international translations, including Turkish, two Chinese translations, Polish, Korean, and Dutch, as well as German, Spanish, and Italian.
Since Jasper Jones, Silvey has published the novella The Amber Amulet, which he adapted into a stage play the following year, and has scripted The Prospector, a contemporary western film directed by Rachel Perkins.
In 2005, Silvey was named one of the Sydney Morning Herald's Best Young Novelists, and in 2010, he was a finalist in the Cleo Bachelor of the Year Awards.
Silvery also sings in an indie/pop/rock band called The Nancy Sikes.
He lives in Fremantle.
Source: https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/A81851
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