Thomas Keneally

Join national treasure and literary icon Thomas Keneally as he discusses his work, past and present with historian and writer Robyn Annear.

2014 is the fiftieth anniversary of Thomas Keneally’s first novel. He was the first Australian to win a Booker Prize (for Schindler’s Ark, filmed as Steven Spielberg’s Oscar-winning Schindler’s List). He won the Miles Franklin twice.

Spielberg says he changed his life. Richard Flanagan says he ‘opened the space for me and for so many other Australian writers to follow’.

Fred Schepisi (who calls his writing ‘so beautiful and so descriptive and so clean’) waited years to get the film rights to The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith. This powerful story of a black man’s revenge against an unjust and intolerant society was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

Keneally is also an acclaimed historian; in his multi-volume Australians, he brings the vast range of characters who have formed our story to life. Volume Three follows the nation through the decades of the Great Crash, World War II and the Petrov Affair.