Patrick White: a life

Abstract

A biography of Patrick White, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, author of more than a dozen novels and many other books, a spokesman for (and against) an Australia he both hated and loved. author secured White's co-operation in tracking down sources and using private documentary material, but retained the right to write what he wished. Marr evokes the wealthy back-country ranching society out of which White sprang, the grand houses in Sydney and the sheep stations the size of Belgium; the jackarooing days that laid the groundwork for his first fiction; London before the war and the North African desert where he served as an unlikely intelligence officer; the travels and love affairs in Europe and America; the inevitable return to Australia and the political and aesthetic battles that engaged him during his last years. At the same time, Marr makes plain the shape of White's emotional life as a homosexual, especially its central relationship, the companionship of Manoly Lascaris, his close friend of nearly 50 years. author also wrote The Ivanov Trial and Barwick, which won the New South Wales Premier's Prize.