Thomas Keneally

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Thomas Michael Keneally

Born 7 October 1935 (1935-10-07) (age 72)
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Occupation Novelist
Nationality Flag of Australia Australia

Thomas Michael Keneally AO (born 7 October 1935) also Tom Keneally, is an Australian novelist, playwright, and non-fiction writer.

Contents

[edit] Life and work

He was known as "Mick" until 1964 but began using the name Thomas when he started publishing, after advice from his publisher to use what was really his first name. [1] He is perhaps most famous for his Schindler's Ark (1982) (later republished as Schindler's List), which won the Booker Prize and is the basis of the film Schindler's List. Many of his novels are reworkings of historical material, although modern in their psychology and style.

He was born in Homebush, New South Wales and educated at St Patrick's College, Strathfield, where a writing prize was named after him. He entered St Patrick's Seminary, Manly to train as a Catholic priest, but left before his ordination. He then worked as a schoolteacher in Sydney, before his success as a novelist, and was a lecturer at the University of New England (1968 - 70). He has also written screenplays, memoirs, and non-fiction books.

Keneally has also acted in a handful of films. He had a small role in The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (which he wrote) and played Father Marshall in the Fred Schepisi movie, The Devil's Playground (1976) (not to be confused with a similarly-titled documentary by Lucy Walker about the Amish rite of passage called rumspringa).

In 1983 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO). He is an Australian Living Treasure.

He is a strong advocate of the Australian republic, meaning the severing of all ties with the British monarchy, and published a book on the subject Our Republic in 1993. Several of his republican essays appear on the web site of the Australian Republican Movement.

Keneally is a keen supporter of the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles rugby league team in the NRL.

[edit] Awards

Man Booker Prize The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, shortlisted 1972
Gossip from the Forest, shortlisted 1975
Confederates, shortlisted 1979
Schindler's Ark, winner 1982
The Miles Franklin Award Bring Larks and Heroes, winner 1967
Three Cheers for the Paraclete, winner 1968
An Angel in Australia, shortlisted 2003
The Widow and Her Hero, longlisted 2008

[edit] Schindler's Ark

Main article: Schindler's Ark

Keneally wrote the Booker Prize winning novel in 1982, inspired by the efforts of Poldek Pfefferberg, a Holocaust survivor. In 1980 Pfefferberg met Keneally in his shop, and, learning that he was a novelist, showed him his extensive files on Schindler. Keneally was interested, and Pfefferberg became an advisor for the book, accompanying Keneally to Poland where they visited Kraków and the sites associated with the Schindler story. Keneally dedicated Schindler's Ark to Pfefferberg: "who by zeal and persistence caused this book to be written." He said in an interview in 2007 that what attracted him to Oskar Schindler was that "it was the fact that you couldn't say where opportunism ended and altruism began. And I like the subversive fact that the spirit breatheth where it will. That is, that good will emerged from the most unlikely places".[1] The book was later made into a film titled Schindler's List (1993) by Steven Spielberg, earning that director his first Best Director Oscar.

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Novels

  • The Place at Whitton (1964)
  • The Fear (1965), rewritten in (1989) as By the Line.
  • Bring Larks and Heroes (1967), winner of the Miles Franklin Award, set in an unidentified British penal colony.
  • Three Cheers for the Paraclete (1968), winner of the Miles Franklin Award, comic novel of a doubting priest.
  • The Survivor (1969), a survivor looks back on a disastrous Arctic expedition.
  • A Dutiful Daughter (1971), Keneally's personal favourite.
  • The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1972), also filmed. Written through the eyes of an exploited Aborigine who explodes in rage. Based on an actual incident. Keneally has said he would not now presume to write in the voice of an Aborigine, but would have written the story as seen by a white character.
  • Blood Red, Sister Rose (1974), a novel based loosely on the life of Joan of Arc.
  • Gossip from the Forest (1975), tells of the negotiation of the armistice that ended World War I.
  • Season in Purgatory (1976), love among Tito's partisans in World War II.
  • Ned Kelly and the City of the Bees (1978), a book for children.
  • A Victim of the Aurora (1978), a detective story set on an Antarctic expedition.
  • Passenger (1979)
  • Confederates (1979), with Stonewall Jackson's army.
  • The Cut-Rate Kingdom (1980), Australia at war in 1942.
  • Schindler's Ark (1982), winner of the Booker Prize, later retitled Schindler's List.
  • A Family Madness (1985)
  • The Playmaker (1987), prisoners perform a play in Australia 200 years ago.
  • Act of Grace (1985), under the pseudonym William Coyle
  • By the Line (1989), working-class families face World War II in Sydney.
  • Towards Asmara (1989), the conflict in Eritrea.
  • Flying Hero Class (1991), Palestinians hijack an aeroplane carrying an Aboriginal folk dance troupe.
  • Chief of Staff (1991), under the pseudonym William Coyle
  • Woman of the Inner Sea (1993), Keneally retells a story once told him by a young woman that haunted his imagination.
  • Jacko (1993), madness and television.
  • A River Town (1995)
  • Bettany's Book (2000)
  • An Angel in Australia (2002), also published as Office of Innocence
  • The Tyrant's Novel (2003), an Australian immigration detainee tells his story
  • The Widow and Her Hero (2007), the effect of war on those left behind

[edit] Non-Fiction

[edit] Drama

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ "Tom Keneally, interviewed by Peter Thompson"

[edit] References

[edit] External links

v • d • e
Man Booker Prize for Fiction
1969–1980

P. H. Newby (1969) Bernice Rubens (1970) · V. S. Naipaul (1971) · John Berger (1972) · James Gordon Farrell (1973) · Nadine Gordimer / Stanley Middleton (1974) · Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (1975) · David Storey (1976) · Paul Scott (1977) · Iris Murdoch (1978) · Penelope Fitzgerald (1979) · William Golding (1980)
1981–2000

Salman Rushdie (1981) · Thomas Keneally (1982) · John Maxwell Coetzee (1983) · Anita Brookner (1984) · Keri Hulme (1985) · Kingsley Amis (1986) · Penelope Lively (1987) · Peter Carey (1988) · Kazuo Ishiguro (1989) · A. S. Byatt (1990) · Ben Okri (1991) · Michael Ondaatje / Barry Unsworth (1992) · Roddy Doyle (1993) · James Kelman (1994) · Pat Barker (1995) · Graham Swift (1996) · Arundhati Roy (1997) · Ian McEwan (1998) · John Maxwell Coetzee (1999) · Margaret Atwood (2000)
2001–present

Peter Carey (2001) · Yann Martel (2002) · DBC Pierre (2003) · Alan Hollinghurst (2004) · John Banville (2005) · Kiran Desai (2006) · Anne Enright (2007)


Persondata
NAME Keneally, Thomas Michael
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION Australian Novelist
DATE OF BIRTH 7 October 1935
PLACE OF BIRTH Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH