Garry Disher

Brief Biography

Garry Disher was born in Burra in the mid-north of South Australia in 1949. He has an Arts degree from The University of Adelaide, a Diploma of Education from La Trobe University, and an MA in history from Monash University. In 1978-79 he held the Australian Creative Writing Fellowship at Stanford University. He has lived and worked in England, Europe, the USA and Africa and now makes his home writing full-time on the Victorian coast.

Disher's novel, The Bamboo Flute, won the Children's Book Council Book of the Year for Younger Readers in 1993. His novel, The Divine Wind, won the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Ethel Turner Prize for Young People's Literature in 1999. The Sunken Road was entered by his publisher for the Booker Prize, but was not shortlisted (longlists were not announced at that time).

Garry Disher has won the top prize in the International section of Deutsche Krimi Preis (Germany's major crime writing awards) twice: in 2000 for Kickback and in 2002 for The Dragon Man.

He is currently working on new novels in both his major crime series.

Bibliography

Novels
Steal Away 1987
The Stencil Man 1988
Kickback 1991
Paydirt 1992
Deathdeal 1993
Crosskill 1994
The Sunken Road 1996
Port Vila Blues 1996
The Fallout 1997
The Dragon Man 1999
Past the Headlands 2001
Kitty Hawk Down 2003
Snapshot 2005
Chain of Evidence 2007

Short Story Collections
Approaches 1981
The Difference to Me 1988
Flamingo Gate 1991
Straight, Bent and Barbara Vine 1998

Young Adult
The Bamboo Flute 1992
Ratface 1993
Ermyntrude Takes Charge 1995
Blame the Wind 1995
Restless : Stories of Flight & Fear 1995
Walk Twenty, Run Twenty 1996
The Half Dead 1997
The Apostle Bird 1997
The Divine Wind 1999
From Your Friend, Louis Deane 2000
Moondyne Kate 2001
Maddie Finn 2002
Eva's Angel 2003
Two-Way Cut 2004

Children's
Switch Cat 1994

Edited
The Man Who Played Spoons 1987
Personal Best 1989
Personal Best 2 1991
Below the Waterline 1999

Non-Fiction
Wretches and Rebels: The Australian Bushrangers 1981
Writing Fiction: An Introduction to the Craft 1983
Bushrangers 1984
Total War: The Home Front, 1939-1945 1985
Australia Then & Now 1987
Writing Professionally: The Freelancer's Guide to Writing and Marketing 1989
Writing Fiction: An Introduction to the Craft revised edition, 2001

Web References
Ioanna Petrescu from the Flinders University in South Australia maintains a Garry Disher website.
Robyn Ewing has developed a set of teachers' notes for Disher's young adult novels (PDF File).

Wyatt Series
Kickback 1991
Paydirt 1992
Deathdeal 1993
Crosskill 1994
Port Vila Blues 1996
The Fallout 1997

Detective Inspector Hal Challis Series
The Dragon Man 1999
Kitty Hawk Down 2003
Snapshot 2005
Chain of Evidence 2007

This page and its contents are copyright ©2001-07 by Perry Middlemiss, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

Last modified: August 8, 2007.