Kim Scott facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Kim Scott
FAHA
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| Born | 18 February 1957 Perth, Western Australia, Australia |
| Notable works | Benang: From the Heart; That Deadman Dance |
| Notable awards | Miles Franklin Award 2000 Benang Miles Franklin Award 2011 That Deadman Dance |
Kim Scott FAHA was born on February 18, 1957. He is an important Australian writer. He is a descendant of the Noongar people. They are an Aboriginal Australian group from Western Australia. Scott is well-known for his novels. They often explore Aboriginal identity and history. He has won the famous Miles Franklin Award twice.
About Kim Scott
Kim Scott was born in Perth, Western Australia, in 1957. He is the oldest of four children. His mother was white, and his father was Aboriginal.
Scott has written five novels and one children's book. He has also had poetry and short stories published. He started writing after he became an English teacher. He taught in cities and country areas in Australia. He also taught in Portugal for a time. He spent some time teaching in an Aboriginal community. There, he began to research his own family's history.
His first novel, True Country, came out in 1993. It was later translated into French in 2005. His second novel, Benang, won several awards. These included the Western Australian Premier's Book Awards in 1999. It also won the Miles Franklin Award in 2000. And it won the Kate Challis RAKA Award in 2001.
Both True Country and Benang were inspired by his family research. They are thought to be partly about his own life. These books look at how Aboriginal people with lighter skin find their identity. They also explore government policies from the early 1900s. These policies tried to make Aboriginal people live like white Australians.
Kim Scott was the first Indigenous writer to win the Miles Franklin Award. He won it for his book Benang. This book has been translated into French and Dutch. His book, Kayang and Me, was written with his aunt, Hazel Brown. She is a Noongar elder. This book was published in May 2005. It tells the story of Scott's family. It shares the history of the Noongar people from Western Australia's south coast.
His 2010 novel, That Deadman Dance, is about early 19th-century Australia. It explores the interesting connections between Noongar people, British colonists, and American whalers. On June 21, 2011, it was announced that Scott had won the 2011 Miles Franklin Award for this novel. He also won the 2011 Victorian Premier's Prize for the same book.
In December 2011, Scott became a Professor of Writing at Curtin University. He is part of The Centre for Culture and Technology (CCAT). He leads their research program on Indigenous Culture and Digital Technologies.
Scott lives in Coolbellup, near Fremantle, Western Australia. He lives there with his wife and two children.
Awards and Recognitions
Kim Scott has won many awards for his writing:
- 1999 – Western Australian Premier's Book Awards, Fiction Award for Benang: From the Heart
- 2000 – (joint winner) Miles Franklin Literary Award for Benang: From the Heart
- 2001 – The Kate Challis RAKA Award for Creative Prose for Benang: From the Heart
- 2011 – Commonwealth Writers' Prize, Best Book for south-east Asia and the Pacific, for That Deadman Dance
- 2011 – Miles Franklin Literary Award for That Deadman Dance
- 2011 – ALS Gold Medal for That Deadman Dance
- 2011 – Western Australian Premier's Book Awards, Fiction Award and Premier's Prize for That Deadman Dance
- 2012 – Honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities
- 2018 – Queensland Literary Awards, University of Queensland Fiction Book Award for Taboo
- 2019 – Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Indigenous Writing, for Taboo
- 2019 – Shortlisted for 2019 Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature, Fiction, for Taboo
- 2020 – Inducted into the Western Australian Writers Hall of Fame
- 2023 – Inaugural Indigenous Studies Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities
- 2024 – Elected as Royal Society of Literature International Writer
