Author
Thomas Keneally
Birth Date
October 7, 1935
(90 Years)
Associated Country
Australia
Thomas Keneally is an Australian novelist, playwright, and nonfiction writer known for his powerful historical narratives and moral inquiry. He was born in Sydney and initially trained for the Catholic priesthood before turning to writing.
Keneally is best known for his novel Schindler’s Ark (1982), which won the Booker Prize. The book tells the story of Oskar Schindler and his efforts to save Jewish lives during the Holocaust, and it later inspired the acclaimed film Schindler’s List. He has written numerous other novels and works of nonfiction, often focusing on historical events, ethical dilemmas, and human resilience.
His writing is celebrated for its accessibility, emotional impact, and strong sense of storytelling. Keneally is widely regarded as one of Australia’s most prominent literary figures, with a career spanning several decades.
Keneally is best known for his novel Schindler’s Ark (1982), which won the Booker Prize. The book tells the story of Oskar Schindler and his efforts to save Jewish lives during the Holocaust, and it later inspired the acclaimed film Schindler’s List. He has written numerous other novels and works of nonfiction, often focusing on historical events, ethical dilemmas, and human resilience.
His writing is celebrated for its accessibility, emotional impact, and strong sense of storytelling. Keneally is widely regarded as one of Australia’s most prominent literary figures, with a career spanning several decades.
Books
A Bloody Good Rant 2023
Thomas Keneally has been observing, reflecting on and writing about Australia and the human condition for well over fifty years. In this deeply personal, passionately drawn and richly tuned collection...
The Dickens Boy 2021
In 1868, Charles Dickens dispatches his youngest child, sixteen-year-old Edward, to Australia.
Posted to a remote sheep station in New South Wales, Edward discovers that his father's fame has reached...
An award-winning documentary filmmaker, Shelby Apple is obsessed with reimagining the full story of the Learned Man—a prehistoric man whose remains are believed to be the link between Africa and...
Crimes of the Father 2018
Sent away from his native Australia to Canada due to his radical preaching against the Vietnam War, apartheid, and other hot button issues, Father Frank Docherty now enjoys a satisfying career as a...
In October 1815, after his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon Bonaparte was sent to live the remainder of his life in exile on the remote Southern Atlantic island of St. Helena. There, on what...
Australians 2016
Thomas Keneally's widely acclaimed three volume history of the Australian people from origins to Vietnam gave us a robust, vibrant and page-turning narrative that brought to life the vast range of...
Confederates 2015
In the summer of 1862, as the Civil War rages on, a ragtag Confederate army consisting of young boys and old men, storekeepers, farmers, and teachers, gathers in Virginia under the leadership of Tom...
In 1915, Naomi and Sally Durance, two spirited Australian sisters, join the war effort as nurses, escaping the confines of their father’s farm and carrying a guilty secret with them. Amid the carnage,...
When Jimmie Blacksmith marries a white woman, the backlash from both Jimmie′s tribe and white society initiates a series of dramatic events. As Jimmie tries to survive between two cultures, tensions...
This is the captivating story behind Schindler’s List, the Booker Prize–winning book and the Academy Award–winning Spielberg film. Keneally tells the tale of the unlikely encounter that propelled him...
Abraham Lincoln 2008
The self -made man from a log cabin, the great orator, the Emancipator, the Savior of the Union, the martyr-Lincoln's story is at the very heart of American history. But who was he, really? In this...
The story of modern Australia begins in eighteenth-century Britain, where people were hanged for petty offences but crime was rife, and the gaols were bursting. From this situation was born the Sydney...
The Tyrant's Novel 2004
In a detention camp where he is neither granted asylum nor readied to be sent back to his native land, a detainee bides his time. He insists on being called Alan Sheriff, a westernization of his given...
American Scoundrel 2003
Hero, adulterer, bon vivant, murderer and rogue, Dan Sickles led the kind of existence that was indeed stranger than fiction. Throughout his life he exhibited the kind of exuberant charm and lack of...
The Great Shame 2000
The nineteenth century saw Ireland lose half of its population to famine, emigration, or deportation to penal colonies in Australia--often for infractions as common as stealing food. Among the victims...
Kate Gaffney-Kozinski, an attractive, well educated woman, has gone on “walkabout” to the inner reaches of the Australian outback. Fleeing her wealthy husband, Paul Kozinski, and his unscrupulous...
Schindler's List 1993
Based on a true story, Schindler's List follows Oskar Schindler, an unlikely hero whose transformation unfolds against the backdrop of Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II. A businessman and...
Playmaker 1993
Lieutenant Ralph Clark has received the most bizarre of commissions. In honor of the king's birthday, Clark is charged with staging a production of the George Farquhar comedy The Recruiting Officer....
To Asmara 1990
With his own life in flux, Timothy Darcy, an Australian journalist, finds escape in the ongoing turmoil of Eritrea. Entering the war-torn East African region with three Western strangers on missions...
In November 1918, after four long years of murderous conflict, six men gather in a railroad car in a secluded forest outside Paris, France, to negotiate an end to World War I. A pacifist, left-leaning...
A young Catholic priest, Father Maitland raises eyebrows among the brothers of St. Peter's the moment his young cousin and new bride spend the night in his room. But even when he's trying to do the...