Top writer wins award
NZPA London The Australian writer, Thomas Keneally, has been awarded this year’s £lO.OOO ($NZ23,800) Booker prize for his novel, “Schindler's Ark." But the book, which has won the country's most coveted award for fiction is, according to the author and publisher, 90 per cent fact. It tells the story of German industrialist. Oskar Schindler, who turned his war-time factory in Poland into a benign concentration camp, and saved the lives of more than 1000 Jewish employees. The book is based on interviews with survivors in Australia, Europe and South America. Mr Keneally and the publisher, Hodder and Stoughton, agreed when the book was short-listed that the story
was mostly factual. Seven years ago. another of Mr Keneally's books. “Gossip from the Forest." which was also based on fact, narrowly missed the Booker prize. “Schlinder’s Ark" caused controversy when it was chosen as one of six books short-listed for the prize. Professor John Carey, chairman of the judges, defended its choice: “There is no falsity in the book, but he has made a novel by structuring. placing, and ordering. “We discussed this question and in the end none of us thought it should be disqualified on the grounds of not being a novel.” After announcing the award, Professor Carey said, “The judges thought the work of the greatest stature, treating a huge and tragic
subject." Mr Keneally, aged 47, is one of Australia's best known and most prolific writers. He was born in Sydney, and is the grandson of an Irish labourer who immigrated in the nineteenth Century. He studied for the priesthood but changed his mind two weeks before his ordination. He started writing when he was 28. The other five books on the short-list were: “Silence Among the Weapons," by John Arden (Methuen); “An Ice-Cream War,” by William Boyd (Hamish Hamilton); “Constance or Solidarity Practices," by Lawrence Durrell (Faber); “Sour Sweet,” by Timothy Mo (Andre Deutsch); and “The 27th Kingdom,” by Alice Thomas Ellis (Duckworth).
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Press, 27 October 1982, Page 28
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330Top writer wins award Press, 27 October 1982, Page 28
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