Kylie Tennant

Kylie Tennant was born in Manly, NSW, in 1912. In 1932, she married Lewis Charles Rodd. Her first novel, Tiburon, won the S. H. Prior Memorial Prize in 1935. and further novels saw her develop her social-realist style. However, her work is much more complex than suggested by the term social realism, although she conducted first-hand research to give her novels authenticity, once even spending a week in gaol. Her best known novel is The Battlers (1941) which won the S.H. Prior Memorial Prize in 1940 and the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal in 1941. Other of her works embrace travel, biography, work for children and dramatic works. In 1980 Kylie Tennant was made AO. She died in 1988.

Awards

1935: S. H. Prior Memorial Prize awarded by The Bulletin magazine, for Tiburon[5]

1940: S. H. Prior Memorial Prize (run by the Bulletin), for The Battlers, shared with Eve Langley, The Pea-Pickers, and Malcolm Henry Ellis's "John Murtagh Macrossan lectures".

1942: Australian Literature Society Gold Medal for The Battlers

1960: Children’s Book Council Book Award for All the Proud Tribesmen

1980: Officer of the Order of Australia for services to literature[6]