Sydney Writers Festival - Sonya Hartnett in conversation with her publishers

Sonya Hartnett was born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1968. Her first book, Trouble All the Way (1984), was published when she was just 15 years old, and since then she has written many more books of fiction.

Her novels have been published traditionally as young adult fiction, but her writing often crosses the divide and is also enjoyed by adults.

Her novels include: Wilful Blue (1994), also produced as a play and performed at the Victorian Arts Centre; Sleeping Dogs (1995); Black Foxes (1996), which traces the extraordinary life of Lord Tyrone Sully; and Thursday's Child (2002). Set in the Great Depression, this novel follows the young Harper Flute, as she watches her family's struggle to survive. It won the 2002 Guardian Children's Fiction Prize. What the Birds See (2003), also published in the UK, but published first in Australia as Of A Boy (2000), tells the story of nine-year-old Adrian, who struggles to understand the disappearance of three local children.

In Stripes of the Sidestep Wolf (2004), Satchel O'Rye and Chelsea Piper, marooned in an Australian backwater with the world passing them by, find their own survival becomes inextricably intwined with that of an animal they believe to be the last-ever Tasmanian wolf.

In both 2000 and 2003, Sonya Hartnett was named one of The Sydney Morning Herald Young Novelists of the Year. The Silver Donkey and Surrender  were published in 2004 and 2005 respectively, the latter shortlisted for a 2006 Commonwealth Writers Prize (South East Asia and South Pacific Region Best Book).

Sonya Hartnett's novel, The Ghost's Child, was shortlisted for the 2008 Commonwealth Writers Prize (South East Asia and South Pacific Region, Best Book). In the same year, she was awarded the prestigious Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award. Her latest book is Butterfly (2009).

Above biographical information from the British Council website.

I first met the elfin-like Sonya Hartnett in my role as a judge of the Commonwealth Writers Prize and have long admired her writing so it was a great pleasure to sit in the audience at the Sydney Writers Festival to hear her in conversation with her Australia and Norwegian publishers. It was a quiet, low key session, with the Sydney  Theatre's Wharf Two auditorium filled with an audience that was 98% female.

Norway was the first country to publish Hartnett in translation so it was interesting to hear her publisher talking about publishing in that market which has a population comparable to New Zealand. And in particular to then hear all three panel members talking about the problems and pleasures of publishing works in translation. Hartnett said authors have to trust that translators are competent and in particular can capture the essence of the book. She is translated into 17 languages.

She also talked about the demands American publishers often make when taking books in English from Australia, NZ and the UK. She doesn't mind changing words such as footpath to pavement but when they want to change the structure of the story or make significant changes then she digs her heels in and refuses. She gave an example of a story she had published which was set in Gallipoli which the Americans wanted shifted to D-Day in Word War Two!

The discussion ranged over a wide broad of subjects including the Bologna Book Fair, e-Books, self-publishing, the Astrid Lindgren Prize, the honouring and recognition of children's writers in Sandinavia, the significant government support for local book publishing in Norway, and Sonya's first picture book - The Boy and the Toy.

Interesting stuff.