Thomas Keneally : history as a parable for the present

Abstract

Thomas Keneally was born in Sydney, Australia in 1935 into an Irish Catholic family. He was educated at St. Patrick's College, Strathfield. He studied for the Catholic priesthood for seven years, but did not take orders. Instead of taking orders Keneally became a school teacher and it was during this period that he began to write. His first novel A Place at Whitton was published in 1964. Since then his output has been prodigious and he has gone on to become one of Australia's leading literary figures. He is married to Judith Martin and has two daughters, Margaret and Jane. Keneally, has written some twenty novels and is still writing. He has also written three plays, Halloran 's Little Boat (1966), Childermas (1968), An A11ful Rose (1972) and Bullie 's House (1980) and a children's book Ned Kelly and the City of Bees. He has won many prestigious prizes, amongst them Schindler 's List which won England's Booker Prize and The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith which received the Royal Society Award. Keneally is a writer of national and international fame. He travels widely, writes frequently in the Australian press on a wide range of topics, appears on television and clearly thrives on seminars, panel discussions and university workshops. In addition to writing, Keneally is a leader of Australia's burgeoning Republican movement, which demands complete constitutional separation of the continent from its roots as part of the British Commonwealth. He has two houses with magnificent water views one in Bilgola and another in Potts Point, Sydney. Keneally loves the serenity of the sea, loves playing tennis, surfing and drinking and conversing. Keneally's interests and enjoyments locate him firmly in the mainstream of Australian popular culture. Such life and leisure activities may be Keneally's way of life, but it is not a way of life that he writes about.