Keneally has never lost sight of his family heritage, and his sympathy for the dispossessed of the world is evident throughout his work. At the age of eighteen Keneally entered a Roman Catholic seminary to study for the priesthood, but he left after seven years and became a schoolteacher. He published his first novel,
The Place at Whitton, in 1964, and over the following two decades, he produced a regular output of well-received novels, almost one a year. He was short-listed for the Booker Prize three times before winning that prestigious award for
Schindler's List in 1982.
Most of Keneally's novels have historical settings, and roughly half of them take place in his native Australia. His recurring theme is cultural conflict in colonial Australia, as seen in such novels as The Playmaker (1987) and Passenger (1979), and in later conflicts set in the Outback, such as The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1972) and Woman of the Inner Sea (1992). But Keneally also uses historical settings in Europe and America. Blood Red, Sister Rose (1974) presents Joan of Arc as a simple country girl caught up in the tide of great events.
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