- Commonwealth Writers' Prize Best Book, South-east Asia and the Pacific, 2011: winner
- Miles Franklin Literary Award, 2011: winner
- ALS Gold Medal, 2011: winner
- Kate Challis RAKA Award, 2011: winner
- Victorian Premier's Literary Award, Victorian Prize for Literature and Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction, 2011: winner
- Indie Book Award, 2011: shortlisted
- Prime Minister's Literary Awards, Best Adult Fiction Book, 2011: shortlisted
- Western Australian Premier's Book Awards, Premier's Prize and Fiction Book, 2011: winner
- Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature, Fiction and Premier's prizes, 2012: winner
- NSW Premier's Literary Award, Christina Stead Prize and Book of the Year, 2012: winner
The Miles Franklin judges described That Deadman Dance as "a powerful and innovative fiction that shifts our sense of what an historical novel can achieve. Its language is shaped by the encounter of Noongar and Australian English, producing new writing and speech. It tells the story of the rapid destruction of Noongar people and their traditions. At the same time, there is the enchanting possibility of the birth of a new world in the strange song, dance, ceremony and language that are produced by these encounters of very different peoples."
