1947 in Australian literature

• The Grace Leven Prize for Poetry, worth £50, is awarded for the first time to Pacific Sea by Nan McDonald.[1]

• Jon Cleary – You Can't See 'Round Corners
• Erle Cox – The Missing Angel
• M. Barnard Eldershaw – Tomorrow and Tomorrow
• Miles Franklin – The Thorny Rose
• Arthur Gask – The Dark Mill Stream
• Catherine Gaskin – With Every Year
• Ion L. Idriess – Isles of Despair
• Norman Lindsay – Halfway to Anywhere
• Vance Palmer – Cyclone
• Nevil Shute – The Chequer Board

• Myra Morris – The Township
• Judah Waten – "To a Country Town"

• Ruth C. Williams – Timothy Tatters

• David Campbell – "Small-Town Gladys"
• Victor Daley – Creeve Roe : Poetry
• Rosemary Dobson – "Country Press"
• R. D. Fitzgerald – "Fifth Day"
• A. D. Hope – "Conquistador"
• Nancy Keesing – "Detective Story"
• Nan McDonald – Pacific Sea
• John Shaw Neilson – Unpublished Poems of John Shaw Neilson
• Will H. Ogilvie – "Harry Morant"
• Elizabeth Riddell – "A Train in the Night"
• Roland Robinson – "Drifting Dug-Out"
• Judith Wright
  • "The Bull"
  • "The Cycads"

• Vance Palmer – Hail Tomorrow
• Douglas Stewart – Shipwreck
• Patrick White – The Ham Funeral

Note: these awards were presented in the year in question.

A list, ordered by date of birth (and, if the date is either unspecified or repeated, ordered alphabetically by surname) of births in 1947 of Australian literary figures, authors of written works or literature-related individuals follows, including year of death.

• 10 January – Arnold Zable, novelist (in Wellington, New Zealand)
• 15 January – Richard Harland, novelist
• 21 March – Terry Dowling, novelist and short story writer
• 13 April – Amanda Lohrey, novelist
• 4 May
  • Marele Day, novelist
  • Peter Kocan, author and poet
• 13 July – David Marr, journalist and biographer
• 23 September – Gary Crew, novelist
• 30 October – Gary Catalano, poet and art critic (died 2002)
• 12 November – Martin Johnston, novelist and poet (died 1990)

Unknown date

• Eric Beach, poet and playwright
• Michael Dugan, poet (died 2006)
• Jacqueline Kent, writer and biographer
• Rhyll McMaster, novelist
• Bruce Pascoe, novelist
• Graham Rowlands, poet

A list, ordered by date of death (and, if the date is either unspecified or repeated, ordered alphabetically by surname) of deaths in 1947 of Australian literary figures, authors of written works or literature-related individuals follows, including year of birth.

• 12 February – Douglas Sladen, poet and biographer (born 1856)
• 19 July – Lennie Lower, journalist and novelist (born 1903)
• 18 October – R. H. Croll, poet and writer (born 1869)
• 1 November – Tilly Aston, blind writer and teacher (born 1873)

• 1947 in Australia
• 1947 in literature
• 1947 in poetry
• List of years in Australian literature
• List of years in literature