Thomas Keneally
Australian novelist (born 1935)
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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 although he was born in Sydney, he too spent his early years in Kempsey. 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.
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).
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.
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Career
Keneally's first story was published in The Bulletin magazine in 1962 under the pseudonym Bernard Coyle. By February 2014, he had written more than 50 books, including 30 novels. 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.
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.
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.
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.
In 2006, Peter Pierce, Professor of Australian Literature, James Cook University, wrote:
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.
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.
Personal life
Keneally married Judy Martin, then a nurse, in 1965, and they had two daughters, Margaret and Jane.
Keneally was the founding chairman (1991–93) of the Australian Republic Movement 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, in particular the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles club of the NRL. In 2004, he gave the sixth annual Tom Brock Lecture. He made an appearance in the 2007 rugby league drama film The Final Winter.
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.
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 Keneally was a novelist, Pfefferberg showed him his extensive files on Oskar Schindler, including the original list itself. 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". 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 the book Searching for Schindler: A Memoir.
In 1996, the State Library of New South Wales, in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, purchased some of the Pfefferberg documents that inspired Keneally, from a private collector, and they are now housed there.
Honours
Keneally was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1973.
In 1983, Keneally was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO). 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".
In 2010 the Australian postal service issued a stamp in his honour.
Keneally has been awarded honorary doctorates including one from the National University of Ireland.