Patrick White

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Patrick Victor Martindale White (28 May 1912 – 30 September 1990) was an Australian writer who wrote 12 books, three short-story collections, and 8 plays between 1935 and 1987. White's fiction incorporates humor, florid prose, shifting narrative vantage points, and a stream of consciousness.

In 1973, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "for an epic and psychological narrative art that has introduced a new continent to literature," the Swedish Academy's citation states, the first and so far only Australian to have been commended the award.

White was also the inaugural recipient of the Miles Franklin Award.

Personal life

Many dinner parties were held at Highbury Park, their Centennial Park home, in a leafy part of Sydney's wealthy Eastern Suburbs. White is portrayed as a sociable host but one who is uneasy with friends in Patrick White's A Life.

Before the 1975 Australian constitutional crisis, White endorsed the conservative, business-oriented Liberal Party of Australia, and after that, he became particularly antiroyalist, making a rare appearance on national television to broadcast his views on the subject. White also expressed his admiration for historian Manning Clark, satirist Barry Humphries, and unionist Jack Mundey.

During the 1970s, White's health began to deteriorate: he had problems with his teeth, his vision was fading, and he had persistent lung problems. During this period, he became more vocal about politics and spoke openly on current topics. He was one of the first group of the Order of Australia in 1975, but resigned in June 1976 after the Governor-General Sir John Kerr sacked the Whitlam government in November 1975. In 1979, his book The Twyborn Affair was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, but White requested that it be stripped to give younger writers a chance to win. (Penelope Fitzgerald, who was actually four years younger than White, received the award.) White announced that he had written his last book shortly after, and that he would write only for radio or the stage.

While walking down a Sydney street some time after White had seen a politically charged stage revue by Sharman, Terror Australis, which had been condemned by Sydney newspaper critics, director Jim Sharman introduced himself to White. White had written a letter to the editor of a newspaper supporting the show. The two guys were not similar in age, but they became close friends. Sharman in his theatre career as well as his artistic style as a director, influenced White to write a few new plays, particularly Big Toys, which depicts a posh and vulgar upper-class Sydney society. Sharman wondered if he could make a film of The Night Prowler a few years ago. White obliged and wrote the screenplay for the film.

White wrote Flaws in the Glass, a self-portrait that investigated issues about which he had little, such as his homosexuality, his disapproving of Australia's "subservient" view of the royal family, and also the distance he felt from his mother. White spoke to a crowd of 30,000 people on Sunday, 1982, demanding that uranium mining be banned and nuclear war destruction be imposed.

Memoirs of Many in One was White's last book, but it was published under the pen name "Alex Xenophon Demirjian Gray" in 1986, with White named editor Robbie White. Voss was turned into an opera in the same year, with Richard Meale's music and David Malouf's libretto. Since it was first performed at the Adelaide Festival of Arts, White refused to attend it and opted to watch it later in Sydney. In 1987, White published Three Uneasy Pieces, which combined his reflections on ageing and society's attempts to achieve aesthetic perfection. When David Marr finished his biography of White in July 1990, he spent nine days with him.

On the 30th of September 1990, White died in Sydney.

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Growth of writing career

After the war, when White had settled in Lascaris, his fame as a writer increased with his publication of The Aunt's Tale and The Tree of Man in the United States and shortly thereafter in the United Kingdom. The Tree of Man was sent to rave reviews in the United States, but in Australia, it had been panned. After his books were largely rejected in Australia (three of them being branded 'un-Australian' by critics), White was skeptical about whether to continue writing, but he decided to persevere, and his first novel, Voss, was the inaugural Miles Franklin Literary Award winner.

In 1961, White published Riders in the Chariot, a best-selling memoir and a prize winner, winning a second Miles Franklin Award. White and Lascaris decided to sell the Castle Hill house in 1963. A number of White's books from the 1960s depict the fictional town of Sarsaparilla, as illustrated in his book The Burnt Ones, and the play The Season at Sarsaparilla. Despite being well-known as one of the world's best writers, he remained a private person, avoiding opportunities for interviews and public appearances, though his circle of friends grew considerably.

White wrote The Vivisector, a revealing character portrait of an artist from 1968. Many people attributed to John Passmore (1904–84) and Sidney Nolan, White's associate, but White denied the links. Patrick White, an art collector who had been deeply impressed by his mentors Roy De Maistre and Francis Bacon, then and later said he wished he had been an artist. He had also become interested in supporting scores of young and less established artists, such as James Clifford, Erica McGilchrist, and Lawrence Daws by the mid-1960s. Louis Kahan's portrait of White was a winner of the 1962 Archibald Prize. In the 1970s, White became acquainted with Brett Whiteley, the young star of Australian painting. Whiteley, a heroin user, was deceitful and pushy about selling his paintings at the time, but his friendship came to an end.

White declined both the $10,000 Britannia Award and another Miles Franklin Award for his efforts, deciding not to accept any more awards for his work. Harry M. Miller had intended to do a screenplay for Voss, but no one came to it. He became a vocal critic of literary censorship and joined a number of other public figures in making a protest against Australia's decision to participate in the Vietnam War. His name had been used as a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature before losing to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, but he wrote to a friend: The Nobel Prize in 1971. I hope I never hear it mentioned again. I certainly don't want it; the equipment behind it looks a bit soiled, although we thought that only Australian awards were eligible. In my case, winning the award would change my life considerably, and it would shame me to be held up to the world as an Australian writer when, aside from the tragic crash of blood, I think I am a cosmopolitan Londoner.

Nonetheless, White did accept the Nobel Prize "for an epic and psychological narrative art," which has opened a new continent to literature in 1973. A Scandinavian diplomat in Australia is believed to have lobbied his cause. Nolan was enlisted by White to enter the award on his behalf in Stockholm. As his publisher doubled the print run for The Eye of the Storm and gave him a bigger advance for his next book, it had an immediate effect on his career. White used the money from the competition to fund the Patrick White Award, which is given annually to established creative writers who have received little public notice. In recognition of his service, the House of Representatives invited him to be seated on the floor of the House of Representatives. White refused to comment that his personality could not possibly adapt to such a situation. Bert Hinkler, the first time such an invitation had been extended, was in 1928, to pioneer aviator Bert Hinkler.

White was named Australian of the Year in 1974, but his acceptance address prompted Australians to spend the day reflecting on the country's state. He was less enthusiastic about it on a personal level. "Something awful happened to me last week," Marshall Best wrote in a letter on January 27, 1974. On Australia Day, an association selects an Australian of the Year. They had to go through all the swimmers, tennis players, and yachtsmen this year.

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