Thomas Keneally

Last updated

Thomas Keneally

AO
Thomas Keneally Festival Cine Sidney.jpg
Keneally in 2012
BornThomas Michael Keneally
(1935-10-07) 7 October 1935 (age 88)
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
OccupationNovelist
Notable awards Booker Prize
SpouseJudy Martin (m. 1965)
Children2

Thomas Michael Keneally, AO (born 7 October 1935) [1] is an Australian novelist, playwright, essayist, and actor. He is best known for his non-fiction novel Schindler's Ark , the story of Oskar Schindler's rescue of Jews during the Holocaust, which won the Booker Prize in 1982. The book would later be adapted into Steven Spielberg's 1993 film Schindler's List , which won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

Contents

Early life

Both Keneally's parents (Edmund Thomas Keneally and Elsie Margaret Coyle) were born to Irish fathers in the timber and dairy town of Kempsey, New South Wales, and, though born in Sydney, his early years were also spent in Kempsey. [2] His father, Edmund Thomas Keneally, flew for the Royal Australian Air Force in World War II, then returned to work in a small business in Sydney. By 1942, the family had moved to 7 Loftus Crescent, Homebush, a suburb in the Inner West of Sydney and Keneally was enrolled at Christian Brothers St Patrick's College, Strathfield. Shortly after, his brother John was born. Keneally studied Honours English for his Leaving Certificate in 1952, under Brother James Athanasius McGlade, and won a Commonwealth scholarship. [3]

Keneally then entered St Patrick's Seminary, Manly, to train as a Catholic priest. Although he was ordained as a deacon while at the seminary, after six years there he left in a state of depression and without ordination in the priesthood. He worked as a Sydney schoolteacher before his success as a novelist and was a lecturer at the University of New England (1968–70). [3]

Keneally was known as "Mick" until 1964 but began using the name Thomas when he started publishing, after advice from his publisher to use his real first name. [2]

Career

Keneally's first story was published in The Bulletin magazine in 1962 under the pseudonym Bernard Coyle. [3] By February 2014, he had written over 50 books, including 30 novels. [4] He is particularly famed for his Schindler's Ark (1982) (later republished as Schindler's List), the first novel by an Australian to win the Booker Prize and is the basis of the film Schindler's List . He had already been shortlisted for the Booker three times prior to that: 1972 for The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, 1975 for Gossip from the Forest, and 1979 for Confederates. [5]

Many of his novels are reworkings of historical material, although modern in their psychology and style.

Premièred at London's Royal Court Theatre, the play Our Country's Good by Timberlake Wertenbaker is based on Keneally's book The Playmaker . In it, convicts deported from Britain to the Empire's penal colony of Australia perform George Farquhar's Restoration comedy The Recruiting Officer set in the English town of Shrewsbury. Artistic Director Max Stafford-Clark wrote about his experiences of staging the plays in repertoire in his book Letters to George.

Keneally has also acted in a handful of films. He had a small role in Fred Schepisi's The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1978) (based on his own novel) and played Father Marshall in the award-winning film The Devil's Playground (1976), also by Schepisi. [6]

Keneally was a member of the Literature Board of the Australia Council from 1985 to 1988 and President of the National Book Council from 1985 to 1989. [3]

Keneally was a visiting professor at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) where he taught the graduate fiction workshop for one quarter in 1985. From 1991 to 1995, he was a visiting professor in the writing program at UCI. [7]

In 2006, Peter Pierce, Professor of Australian Literature, James Cook University, wrote: [3]

Keneally can sometimes seem the nearest that we have to a Balzac of our literature; he is in his own rich and idiosyncratic ways the author of an Australian 'human comedy'.

The Tom Keneally Centre opened in August 2011 at the Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts, housing Keneally's books and memorabilia. The site is used for book launches, readings and writing classes. [8]

Keneally is an ambassador of the Asylum Seekers Centre, a not-for-profit that provides personal and practical support to people seeking asylum in Australia. [9]

Personal life

Keneally married Judy Martin, then a nurse, in 1965, and they had two daughters, Margaret and Jane. [10] [3]

Keneally was the founding chairman (1991–93) of the Australian Republic Movement [5] and published a book on the subject Our Republic in 1993. Several of his Republican essays appear on the website of the movement. He is also a keen supporter of rugby league football, [11] in particular the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles club of the NRL. In 2004, he gave the sixth annual Tom Brock Lecture. [12] He made an appearance in the 2007 rugby league drama film The Final Winter . [13]

In March 2009, the Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, gave an autographed copy of Keneally's biography Lincoln to President Barack Obama as a state gift. [14]

Keneally's nephew Ben is married to the former senior Australian Labor Party Senator, Kristina Keneally. She is also a former Premier of New South Wales and Sky News Australia newscaster.

Schindler's Ark

Keneally wrote the Booker Prize-winning novel in 1982, inspired by the efforts of Poldek Pfefferberg, a Holocaust survivor. In 1980, Keneally met Pfefferberg in the latter's shop, and learning that he was a novelist, Pfefferberg showed him his extensive files on Oskar Schindler, including the original list itself. [15] 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 emerge from the most unlikely places". [2] The book was later made into the movie Schindler's List (1993) directed by Steven Spielberg, earning his first Best Director Oscar. Keneally's meeting with Pfefferberg and their research tours are detailed in Searching for Schindler: A Memoir (2007).

Some of the Pfefferberg documents that inspired Keneally are now housed in the State Library of New South Wales in Sydney. [16] In 1996 the State Library purchased this material from a private collector. [17]

Honours

In 1983, he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO). [18] He is an Australian Living Treasure. Keneally has stated that he was once offered the title of Commander of the Order of the British Empire, and that he refused it. "I said I pitied any empire of which I was a commander". [19]

In 2010 the Australian postal service issued a stamp in his honour. [20]

Keneally has been awarded honorary doctorates including one from the National University of Ireland. [5]

Awards 
Booker Prize The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, shortlisted 1972
Gossip from the Forest, shortlisted 1975
Confederates, shortlisted 1979
Schindler's Ark, winner 1982
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
Prime Minister's Literary Awards The Widow and Her Hero, shortlisted 2008
New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Special Award, winner 2008
Helmerich Award Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award, 2007
ARA Historical Novel PrizeCorporal Hitler's pistol, winner 2022 [21]

Bibliography

Novels

The Monsarrat series, co-authored with Meg Keneally

Non-fiction

Plays

Screenplays

———————

Notes
  1. Rewritten in 1989 as By the line
  2. Revised version of The Fear (1965).
  3. "Celebrated author reveals why he is sharing $50,000 his prize money". ABC News. 20 October 2022. Retrieved 16 January 2023.
  4. Reviews:
  5. Interview: "Fanatic Heart by Tom Keneally". ABC Radio. 25 November 2022. Retrieved 16 January 2023.
  6. Reviews:
  7. The fifth Ray Mathew Lecture, National Library of Australia, 4 September 2014.
  8. "Daunting, haunting task for an author with a story to tell". theage.com.au. 3 May 2007.
  9. "The Survivor". IMDB.
  10. "Silver City". IMDB.
  11. "The Fremantle Conspiracy". IMDB.

Notes

  1. "Thomas Keneally". Britannica. Retrieved 16 February 2024.
  2. 1 2 3 "Tom Keneally". Talking Heads . ABC. 30 July 2007. Archived from the original on 19 March 2011. Retrieved 27 November 2015.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Peter Pierce, ed. (2006). "Thomas Keneally, A Celebration" (PDF). Canberra, Australia: Friends of the National Library of Australia. Retrieved 10 June 2017.
  4. Marks, Kathy (17 February 2014). "Thomas Keneally: 'I hope no one says Australia was born at Gallipoli'". The Guardian. Guardian News and Media Ltd. Retrieved 10 June 2017.
  5. 1 2 3 "Q&A Panellist Tom Keneally". ABC. Retrieved 10 June 2017.
  6. "Interview – Thomas Keneally". januarymagazine.com.
  7. McClellan, Dennis (26 September 1994). "Keneally to Leave UCI for Home". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 29 April 2013.
  8. "A library he calls his own". The Sydney Morning Herald . Australia. 24 July 2011. Retrieved 29 July 2011.
  9. "Our ambassadors". asylumseekerscentre.org.au. Asylum Seekers Centre. Retrieved 13 December 2020.
  10. Steggall, Stephany Evans (26 September 2015). "Interestingly enough … The life of Tom Keneally, and his women". The Weekend Australian . Retrieved 10 June 2017.
  11. Toby Creswell; Samantha Trenoweth (2006). 1001 Australians You Should Know. Australia: Pluto Press. p. 136. ISBN   1-86403-361-4.
  12. Tom Brock Lecture Archived 18 February 2011 at the Wayback Machine at the Australian Society for Sports History's website
  13. FitzSimons, Peter (20 October 2007). "The Fitz Files". The Sydney Morning Herald . Australia. Retrieved 2 October 2010.
  14. "Obama lauds Rudd in 'meeting of the minds'". The Age. 25 March 2009.
  15. Walton, James (7 October 2015). "Thomas Keneally: I wanted to be recognised by the Poms". The Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group Limited. Retrieved 10 June 2017.
  16. "Schindler's List found in Sydney". BBC News. 6 April 2009. Retrieved 28 March 2010.
  17. http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2009/04/08/index.php?section=espectaculos&article=a09n2esp (In Spanish)
  18. "It's an Honour – Honours – Search Australian Honours". itsanhonour.gov.au.
  19. Keneally, Thomas. "Opinion: Hollow, cloying veneration greeted the Queen’s death. Now history calls on us to get an Australian head of state" The Guardian 13 September 2022
  20. Flood, Alison (21 January 2010). "Australian writers honoured by stamps". The Guardian. Retrieved 22 November 2023.
  21. "Celebrated author reveals why he is sharing $50,000 his prize money". ABC News. 20 October 2022. Retrieved 16 January 2023.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oskar Schindler</span> German industrialist and humanitarian during the Nazi era (1908-1974)

Oskar Schindler was a German industrialist, humanitarian, and member of the Nazi Party who is credited with saving the lives of 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust by employing them in his enamelware and ammunitions factories in occupied Poland and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. He is the subject of the 1982 novel Schindler's Ark and its 1993 film adaptation, Schindler's List, which reflected his life as an opportunist initially motivated by profit who came to show extraordinary initiative, tenacity, courage, and dedication in saving his Jewish employees' lives.

<i>Schindlers List</i> 1993 film by Steven Spielberg

Schindler's List is a 1993 American epic historical drama film directed and produced by Steven Spielberg and written by Steven Zaillian. It is based on the 1982 novel Schindler's Ark by Australian novelist Thomas Keneally. The film follows Oskar Schindler, a German industrialist who saved more than a thousand mostly Polish–Jewish refugees from the Holocaust by employing them in his factories during World War II. It stars Liam Neeson as Schindler, Ralph Fiennes as SS officer Amon Göth, and Ben Kingsley as Schindler's Jewish accountant Itzhak Stern.

<i>Schindlers Ark</i> 1982 novel by Thomas Keneally

Schindler's Ark is a historical fiction published in 1982 by the Australian novelist Thomas Keneally. The United States edition of the book was titled Schindler's List; it was later reissued in Commonwealth countries under that name as well. The novel won the Booker Prize, a literary award conferred each year for the best single work of sustained fiction written in the English language, and was awarded the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction in 1983.

The Miles Franklin Literary Award is an annual literary prize awarded to "a novel which is of the highest literary merit and presents Australian life in any of its phases". The award was set up according to the will of Miles Franklin (1879–1954), who is best known for writing the Australian classic My Brilliant Career (1901). She bequeathed her estate to fund this award. As of 2016, the award is valued at A$60,000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Australian literature</span> Literature by Australian writers

Australian literature is the written or literary work produced in the area or by the people of the Commonwealth of Australia and its preceding colonies. During its early Western history, Australia was a collection of British colonies; as such, its recognised literary tradition begins with and is linked to the broader tradition of English literature. However, the narrative art of Australian writers has, since 1788, introduced the character of a new continent into literature—exploring such themes as Aboriginality, mateship, egalitarianism, democracy, national identity, migration, Australia's unique location and geography, the complexities of urban living, and "the beauty and the terror" of life in the Australian bush.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emilie Schindler</span> Wife of Oskar Schindler (1907–2001)

Emilie Schindler was a Sudeten German-born woman who, with her husband Oskar Schindler, helped to save the lives of 1,200 Jews during World War II by employing them in his enamelware and munitions factories, providing them immunity from the Nazis. She was recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by Israel's Yad Vashem in 1994.

<i>Schindlerjuden</i> Jews saved by Oskar Schindler during the Holocaust

The Schindlerjuden, literally translated from German as "Schindler Jews", were a group of roughly 1,200 Jews saved by Oskar Schindler during the Holocaust. They survived the years of the Nazi regime primarily through the intervention of Schindler, who afforded them protected status as industrial workers at his enamelware factory in Kraków, capital of the General Government, and after 1944, in an armaments factory in occupied Czechoslovakia. There, they avoided being sent to death camps and survived the genocide. Schindler expended his personal fortune made as an industrialist to save the Schindlerjuden.

Leopold "Poldek" Pfefferberg, also known as Leopold Page, was a Polish-American Holocaust survivor who inspired the Australian writer Thomas Keneally to write the Booker prize-winning novel Schindler's Ark, which in turn was the basis for Steven Spielberg's critically acclaimed 1993 film Schindler's List.

<i>Emerald City</i> (play) 1987 play by David Williamson

Emerald City is a 1987 play by the Australian playwright David Williamson, a satire about two entertainment industries: film and publishing.

<i>The Survivor</i> (Keneally novel) 1972 Australian film

The Survivor is a 1969 novel by Australian author Thomas Keneally.

<i>Confederates</i> (novel) Novel by Thomas Keneally

Confederates is a 1979 novel by the Australian author Thomas Keneally which uses the American Civil War as its main subject matter.

<i>An Angel in Australia</i> Novel by Thomas Keneally

An Angel in Australia is a 2002 novel by Thomas Keneally.

Leopold Rosner was a Polish-born Australian musician. Rosner, who was Jewish, survived the Holocaust in Nazi concentration camps during World War II by playing his accordion for Nazi officials. This earned the attention of Oskar Schindler, who saved his life by having him placed on his famous list. His story became known after Australian author Thomas Keneally's 1982 novel, Schindler's Ark, was adapted into Steven Spielberg's Oscar-winning film, Schindler's List. He appeared in the epilogue of the film at the Schindler's grave on Mount Zion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sceptre (imprint)</span> Imprint of Hodder & Stoughton

Sceptre is an imprint of Hodder & Stoughton, a British publishing house which is a division of Hachette UK.

This article presents a list of the historical events and publications of Australian literature during 2013.

Abraham Bankier was a Polish businessman and Holocaust survivor who assisted Oskar Schindler in his rescue activities and worked as his factory manager.

<i>The Daughters of Mars</i> Novel by Thomas Keneally

The Daughters of Mars is a 2012 novel by Australian novelist Tom Keneally.

<i>The Fear</i> (Keneally novel) Book by Thomas Keneally

The Fear (1965) is a novel by Australian writer Thomas Keneally. The novel is also known by the title By the Line.

This article presents a list of the historical events and publications of Australian literature during 1982.

Towards Asmara (1989) is a novel by Australian writer Thomas Keneally. It was originally published by Hodder and Stoughton in Australia and the United Kingom in 1989. The novel is also known by the alternative title To Asmara.

References

Further reading