Julia Leigh's novel The Hunter was published to international acclaim and has been translated into six languages. Her new work, Disquiet, will be published around the world in 2008.

In Australia she was named co-winner of the 2000 Sydney Morning Herald Young Novelist of the Year and won the Kathleen Mitchell Award. She was shortlisted for a raft of prizes including the NSW Premier's Award, the Queensland Premier's Fiction Prize, The Age Book of the Year, and the Dobbie Award. In the UK she won a Betty Trask Award; in the USA the novel was named a Notable Book of the Year by The New York Times; in France she is the laureate of the 2001 Prix de L'Astrolabe. She was an inaugural participant in the Rolex Mentor and Protege Arts Initiative.