Patrick White | |
---|---|
Born | Patrick Victor Martindale White 28 May 1912 Knightsbridge, London, England |
Died | 30 September 1990 Sydney, Australia | (aged 78)
Occupation | Novelist, playwright, poet, short-story writer, essayist |
Language | English |
Nationality | Australian |
Education | Bachelor of Arts |
Alma mater | Cambridge University |
Period | 1935–87 |
Genre | High modernism |
Notable awards | Miles Franklin Literary Award 1957 Voss 1961 Riders in the Chariot Australian of the Year Award 1973 |
Partner | Manoly Lascaris (1912–2003) |
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.
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.