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Patrick White was an Australian novelist and playwright who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1973. He wrote complex and challenging works that explored themes of identity, vision and society, and was influenced by modernism and satire.
Patrick White (born May 28, 1912, London, England—died September 30, 1990, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia) was an Australian novelist and playwright who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1973.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Patrick White was an Australian novelist who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1973. He wrote about his childhood, his travels, his love of theatre and his views on society and politics in his novels.
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An essay by Madeleine Watts on the life and works of Patrick White, the only Australian Nobel Laureate in Literature. She explores why White is not widely read or appreciated in his own country, and how his novels reflect his complex relationship with Australia.
- Nobel Prize
- European Or Australian?
- The First Phase
- The Second Phase
- The Third Phase
- The Last Phase
- An Existential Pessimist
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When Patrick White was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1973, the Swedish Academy’s commendation referred to the author’s epic and psychological narrative art as having introduced a new continent into literature. This standpoint may seem surprising now, but at that time it was a generally valid Swedish (and European) perspective – up to the...
It is important to recognize White’s conflicting loyalties to Europe and Australia. In many respects the European background and influences are obvious in his writing. After spending his first school years at private schools in New South Wales, he was sent at the age of thirteen, very much against his will, to Cheltenham College in England. There h...
The Aunt’s Story and The Tree of Man
For many reasons, the two novels The Aunt’s Story and The Tree of Mancan be considered as the initial phase of a novel sequence. Unlike the earlier books, they are concerned with the most fundamental issues of humanity, such as the relationship between madness and sanity, reality and illusion, and the problem of communication in existential matters. For the first time, the idea of movement is structurally and consistently combined with the search for ultimate truth, the quest. Here, as in his...
Voss, Riders in the Chariot, and The Solid Mandala
If the novels of the first phase focus on one single protagonist, those of the second are built up around more than one central character; two, four, and two respectively. All of them are presented as being exceptional, different, puzzling, or even repulsive. In this respect, White’s theme is the reverse, namely to show the ordinariness in which man’s divinity is contained behind outward exceptionality. The characters are also conscious of their otherness in a way Theodora and Stan were not,...
The Vivisector and The Eye of the Storm
The fact that almost five years elapsed between The Solid Mandala and The Vivisector indicates a change of emphasis. A single protagonist is at the centre of both novels in the third phase, and they are dominated by the image of the Eye, which is given a multidimensional function. The central character in The Vivisectoris Hurtle Duffield, a painter whose artist’s eye indicates his special instinct, enabling him to discern truth behind appearances. As the title suggests, the eye is also a knif...
A Fringe of Leaves and The Twyborn Affair
The two books representing the last phase deal with the efforts of the central characters to achieve self-discovery. But neither arrives at the kind of illumination that was typical of the earlier books. The religious dimension is toned down in favour of social and psychological ones, and the imagery is less complex. A Fringe of Leavesis a historical novel in the sense that the story of its heroine, Ellen Roxburgh, is based on that of Eliza Fraser, who in 1836 was shipwrecked on a reef off th...
Taken together, Patrick White’s novels express no specific orthodoxy or conviction concerning existential, mystical or psychological matters, even though it is obvious that he has been inspired by Judeo-Christian mysticism and the philosophies of Eckhart, Schopenhauer, Jung, Buber, and Blake among others. In Voss,for instance, there is a fusion bet...
Learn about Patrick White, the first Australian to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1973, and his epic and psychological narrative art. Explore his themes of existential quest, spirituality, and Australian identity in his novels.
Sep 30, 1990 · Patrick Victor Martindale White was an Australian author widely regarded as one of the major English-language novelists of the 20th century, and winner of the 1973 Nobel Prize for Literature. Born in England while his Australian parents were visiting family, White grew up in Sydney before studying at Cambridge.
Sep 30, 1990 · Patrick White was an Australian writer who won the Nobel Prize for his epic and psychological narrative art. He explored the history and culture of his native country and its people in his novels and plays.
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