Leigh is the author of the novels '' The Hunter '' ( 1999 ) and '' Disquiet '' ( 2008 ) , which received critical acclaim . '' Disquiet '' won the Encore Award for outstanding second novels in 2009 . '' The Hunter '' was adapted into a 2011 feature film starring Willem Dafoe , Sam Neill and Frances O'Connor . Leigh also wrote and made her directorial debut with '' Sleeping Beauty '' , a 2011 film starring Emily Browning about a university student drawn into a mysterious world of desire . Her film was selected for the main competition at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival . In 2016 , she published an autobiographical work '' Avalanche '' about her own experiences with in-vitro fertilisation . In a review in the Sydney Morning Herald , Gretchen Shirm concluded that " at the heart of this book lies an overwhelming generosity , a willingness to impart personal experience for the insight it offers others " . In 2015 Leigh was awarded the Peter Blazey Fellowship from the University of Melbourne for development work on '' Avalanche '' , and in 2016 was awarded the Australia Council Fellowship in Literature for work on a new novel
2011 Cannes Film Festival
2011 Cannes Film Festival
Julia Leigh