Patrick White

English-born Australian writer

Patrick Victor Martindale White (28 May 1912 – 30 September 1990), was an Australian author. He is an important English-language novelist of the 20th century. From 1935 until his death, he published 12 novels, two short-story collections and eight plays.

Patrick White
Patrick White in 1973
Patrick White in 1973
BornPatrick Victor Martindale White
(1912-05-28)28 May 1912
Knightsbridge, London, England
Died30 September 1990(1990-09-30) (aged 78)
Sydney, Australia
OccupationNovelist, playwright, poet, short-story writer, essayist
LanguageEnglish
NationalityAustralian
EducationBachelor of Arts
Alma materCambridge University
Period1935–87
GenreHigh modernism
Notable awardsMiles Franklin Literary Award
1957 Voss
1961 Riders in the Chariot

Australian of the Year Award
1973

Nobel Prize in Literature
1973
PartnerManoly Lascaris (1912–2003)

White's fiction uses humour, ornate prose, shifting narrative vantage points and a stream of consciousness technique. In 1973, he got the Nobel Prize in Literature. He was the only Australian citizen[1][2] with the prize until the South African-born J. M. Coetzee became an Australian citizen in 2006. His novel The Vivisector was close to winning the Lost Man Booker Prize in 2010.

White was made Australian of the Year for 1974.[3]

Patrick White and Christina Stead are widely called the most important Australian novelists of the 20th century.

Novels

change

Short story collections

change
  • Bread and Butter Women (1935) Unpublished.
  • The School for Friends (1935) Unpublished.
  • Return to Abyssinia (1948) Unpublished.
  • The Ham Funeral (1947) prem. Union Theatre, Adelaide, 1961.
  • The Season at Sarsaparilla (1962)
  • A Cheery Soul (1963)
  • Night on Bald Mountain (1964)
  • Big Toys (1977)
  • Signal Driver: a Morality Play for the Times (1982)
  • Netherwood (1983)
  • Shepherd on the Rocks (1987)

Screenplay

Autobiography

change
  • Flaws in the Glass (1981)

References

change
  1. "Australian Nobel Prize Winners". Whitehat.com.au. 2 December 2006. Retrieved 1 September 2011.
  2. "JM Coetzee becomes an Australian citizen". Mail & Guardian. 6 March 2006. Retrieved 31 August 2011.
  3. Lewis, Wendy (2010). Australians of the Year. Pier 9 Press. ISBN 9781741968095.