Outback

By Thomas Keneally

1984

First Published

3.50

Average Rating

256

Number of Pages

7H49M

Audio Length

Outback is of course an Australian word meaning back country. There is an implication of remoteness and sparse population, and remoteness and scarcity of people are at least an element in this book. There is also, behind the word, an implication that very little in the human sense happens there, and that what does happen can be slow and undramatic. This book sets itself to show that nothing could be less true. It is as if in the immeiisity of outback Australia people's temperaments expand like yeast to occupy and give point to the immensities of space. It is hoped therefore that in these pages you will visit an enchanting and unknown country whose customs, secrets, ironies and landscapes you could riot previously have guessed at. To return to the term it can be applied to many regions of Australia, but the region which in the imaginations of most Australians is outback par excellence is the Northern Territory, and this book deals mainly with the Territory and its neighbouring areas. Among other objectives, it attempts to link the history of that astounding country to the people who live there now. It does not try to give an exhaustive chronology either of the European occupation of the Territory or of the venerable millennia of the Aboriginal Dreaming, but it looks at the frontier which still exists in the Northern Territory, at the men and women - often of a nineteenth-century-style character, certainty and toughness - who live their extraordinary lives there. This account also attempts to enter that tribal cosmos of the Aboriginals, that other Australia of the Aboriginal mind, so different from the Australia of the European as to be another continent, another planet. It tries to examine in graphic terms the points at which the two world-views - white and black - depart from each other or collide.

Avg Rating

3.50

Number of Ratings

5 STARS

17%

4 STARS

17%

3 STARS

67%

2 STARS

1 STARS

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Author

Thomas Keneally

Author · 46 books

Thomas Michael Keneally, AO (born 7 October 1935) is an Australian novelist, playwright and author of non-fiction. He is best known for writing Schindler's Ark, the Booker Prize-winning novel of 1982, which was inspired by the efforts of Poldek Pfefferberg, a Holocaust survivor. The book would later be adapted to Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List (1993), which won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Often published under the name Tom Keneally in Australia. Life and Career: Born in Sydney, Keneally was educated at St Patrick's College, Strathfield, where a writing prize was named after him. He entered St Patrick's Seminary, Manly to train as a Catholic priest but left before his ordination. He worked as a Sydney schoolteacher before his success as a novelist, and he was a lecturer at the University of New England (1968–70). He has also written screenplays, memoirs and non-fiction books. Keneally was known as "Mick" until 1964 but began using the name Thomas when he started publishing, after advice from his publisher to use what was really his first name. He is most famous for his Schindler's Ark (1982) (later republished as Schindler's List), which won the Booker Prize and is the basis of the film Schindler's List (1993). Many of his novels are reworkings of historical material, although modern in their psychology and style. Keneally has also acted in a handful of films. He had a small role in The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (based on his novel) and played Father Marshall in the Fred Schepisi movie, The Devil's Playground (1976) (not to be confused with a similarly-titled documentary by Lucy Walker about the Amish rite of passage called rumspringa). In 1983, he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO). He is an Australian Living Treasure. He is a strong advocate of the Australian republic, meaning the severing of all ties with the British monarchy, and published a book on the subject in Our Republic (1993). Several of his Republican essays appear on the web site of the Australian Republican Movement. Keneally is a keen supporter of rugby league football, in particular the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles club of the NRL. He made an appearance in the rugby league drama film The Final Winter (2007). In March 2009, the Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, gave an autographed copy of Keneally's Lincoln biography to President Barack Obama as a state gift. Most recently Thomas Keneally featured as a writer in the critically acclaimed Australian drama, Our Sunburnt Country. Thomas Keneally's nephew Ben is married to the former NSW Premier, Kristina Keneally.