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  • Published: 27 January 2016
  • ISBN: 9780143572831
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 256
  • RRP: $24.99

Golden Boys




Sonya Hartnett's third novel for adults is utterly compelling, an unflinching and disquieting work from one of Australia's finest writers.

'Golden Boys has a line-by-line brilliance that is startling . . . [Hartnett] is one of Australia's most penetrating analysts of the travail and turmoil of families, especially as witnessed and suffered by the young.' Weekend Australian

  • Published: 27 January 2016
  • ISBN: 9780143572831
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 256
  • RRP: $24.99

About the author

Sonya Hartnett

Sonya Hartnett's work has won numerous Australian and international literary prizes and has been published around the world. Uniquely, she is acclaimed for her stories for adults, young adults and children. Her accolades include the Commonwealth Writers' Prize (Of A Boy), The Age Book of the Year (Of A Boy), the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize (Thursday's Child), the Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year for both Older and Younger Readers (Forest, The Silver Donkey, The Ghost's Child, The Midnight Zoo and The Children of the King), the Victorian Premier's Literary Award (Surrender), three shortlistings for the Miles Franklin Award (Of a Boy, Butterfly and Golden Boys) and the CILP Carnegie Medal (The Midnight Zoo). Hartnett is also the first Australian recipient of the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (2008). Sonya published her fourth picture book, Blue Flower, illustrated by Gabriel Evans, in 2021 and it was shortlisted for the CBCA Picture Book of the Year Award.

Also by Sonya Hartnett

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Praise for Golden Boys

Hartnett has a brilliant gift for creating an atmosphere of menace, and she does not fear the dark.

2015 Stella Prize Judges

Golden Boys has a line-by-line brilliance that is startling . . . [Hartnett] is one of Australia's most penetrating analysts of the travail and turmoil of families, especially as witnessed and suffered by the young.

Weekend Australian

Spanning only a scant few weeks, Golden Boys flows as easily as a bike ride on a summer afternoon. But within its effortless unfolding are sombre themes: of the neighbourhood’s acceptance of domestic violence, and its effects on children; of the way class and money can enable and protect a predator; and how resilient, vulnerable, opportunistic and courageous children can be.

Sydney Morning Herald

An absorbing, fiercely elegant and tangibly believable novel that raises questions about our responsibility to bear witness – and details the complex obstacles to doing so.

Australian Book Review

Awards & recognition

Indie Award

Winner  •  2015  •  Fiction

Australian Book Industry Awards

Shortlisted  •  2015  •  Literary Fiction

NSW Premier's Literary Awards

Shortlisted  •  2015  •  Christina Stead Prize for Fiction

Prime Minister's Literary Award

Shortlisted  •  2015  •  Fiction

The Miles Franklin Literary Award

Shortlisted  •  2015  •  Fiction

Victorian Premier's Literary Award

Shortlisted  •  2015  •  Fiction