From the Man Booker to the Oscars, Australian artists are turning culture upside down

If there was still a myth that antipodean artists lacked culture, then the latest Man Booker win for Richard Flanagan has put paid to that. And about time, too, says Gillian Orr

On top of the world: Actress Cate Blanchett and author Richard Flanagan (EPA/David Sandison)

"What's the difference between Australia and yoghurt?" goes a much-loved joke among Brits. "After 200 years, Australia still doesn't have any culture."

Zing! Of course, anyone who has actually been to the land of Oz would know that that's not true. The daughter of an Australian, I lived there for a little while, and all anybody seemed to do was put on a comedy event/art show/dreaded poetry night. Yet while Australians are celebrated for their sporting achievements, they fail to be taken seriously culturally on the world stage. But is that finally changing?

Lovers of xenophobic gags were certainly dealt a blow this week when Richard Flanagan won the Man Booker prize for The Narrow Road to the Deep North, the third Aussie to do so. He insisted that it was a "golden time for Australian writing". But even he is the first to admit that it has not always been this way. Appearing on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme the morning after his win, the 53-year-old agreed that Australian culture has been lacking in the past. "Peter Carey is the greatest Australian writer," said Flanagan. "He, like me, grew up in a country that was a colony of the mind, where we didn't have our own culture. Australian publishing really is only about 40 years old. Australian film, Australian television, Australian music, all these things are younger than I am."

Sure enough, a documentary shown on BBC4 this summer looked at influential Australians in the 1960s who felt that they had to head for London to progress in their chosen fields. Brilliant Creatures: Rebels of Oz profiled four key arrivals – Clive James, Germaine Greer, Barry Humphries and Robert Hughes – and their search for British "sophistication". They came to "beat us at our own game", as the show's presenter Howard Jacobson (who missed out to Flanagan in this year's Booker race) put it.

But, today, while it might be true that plenty of Australians still come over in a bid for success and fame, the view of Australia being a cultural backwater is simply out of date.

"The Australian literary scene has always had an incredible richness – though I do think that there has been increasing international attention in recent years," says Jemma Birrell, the artistic director of Sydney Writers' Festival. "Prizes shed light on particular writers and consequently Australian writing more generally. Then there are writers such as David Malouf, Tim Winton, Alexis Wright, Helen Garner, Michelle de Kretser and Steve Toltz who have gained a wide readership throughout the world. But, generally, I do think that there is a long way to go in terms of recognition."

For the author Kathy Lette, it's about time her home country received the respect it deserves. "So many English people see we Antipodeans as a recessive gene; the Irish of the Pacific," she says. "We never seem to boast about our more intellectual pursuits. Did you know, for example, that Australians read more books and attend more cultural events per head of population than any other country in the world?"

A burgeoning literary scene aside, Lette points out that our friends Down Under are excelling at just about everything. Sadly, however, the work sometimes doesn't make it out of the country. "It's a really exciting place now; I think they've really grown up" says Dan Schreiber, a London-based Australian comedian and writer. "There's a TV show called Danger 5 that is probably the funniest comedy around at the moment. But no one here has heard of it."

And not only does the country boast dozens of award-winning actors, from Cate Blanchett to Geoffrey Rush, but the Australian movie industry is thriving. Yes, Baz Lurhmann might get all the headlines, but Blue-Tongue Films, a collective consisting of directors David Michôd (Animal Kingdom) and Justin Kurzel (the upcoming Macbeth) is considered by filmmakers to be one of the most exciting around.

Meanwhile, music in Australia goes from strength to strength. The mid-Noughties embarrassment of Jet and Delta Goodrem has made way for some of the most revered acts around the globe. In 2012, artists such as Tame Impala, Courtney Barnett and Jagwar Ma inspired NME to call the Australian music scene "easily the most exciting in the world". OK, so they haven't had a mainstream pop star hit the big time since Kylie (although Sia and Iggy Azalea are giving it a go), but in the world of indie they are "killing it". Just don't mention Gotye.

It would seem, however, that the art scene hasn't translated so well abroad. An exhibition of Australian art at the Royal Academy last year, the first major survey of its kind in London for 50 years, was dismissed as a "cascade of diarrhoea" by one unimpressed critic.

But that's not to say that there is no interest in art. Tasmania's MONA gallery, for instance, is a must-visit. And, as Howard Jacobson says in Brilliant Creatures, "If you want to know which gallery a famous picture hangs in, just ask an Australian." Fair dinkum.