Melina Marchetta’s first novel, Looking for Alibrandi, swept the pool of literary awards for young adult fiction when it was published, and was released as a major Australian film, winning an AFI award and Independent Film Award for best screenplay as well as the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Award and the Film Critics Circle of Australia Award. Melina went on to write Saving Francesca, which won the Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Book of the Year Award for Older Readers; and On the Jellicoe Road, which won the American Library Association’s Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature in 2009.
Melina’s next novel, Finnikin of the Rock, won the Aurealis Award for Best Young Adult Novel and was followed by The Piper’s Son, a companion novel to Saving Francesca, which was longlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award, and shortlisted for the 2011 CBCA Book of the Year Award for Older Readers, 2011 Queensland and New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards, and 2011 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards. Melina’s first book for younger readers, The Gorgon in the Gully, was released in 2010. Her novels have been published in eighteen countries and seventeen languages.
Melina lives in Sydney, where she writes full-time. Her website is
melinamarchetta.com.au.
Looking for Alibrandi
Saving Francesca
On the Jellicoe Road
The Piper’s Son
The Lumatere Chronicles
Finnikin of the Rock
For Younger Readers
The Gorgon in the Gully