Thomas Keneally's Career and the Literary Machine

Description

An examination of Thomas Keneally's work and reception Booker Prize winner and Living National Treasure, Thomas Keneally still divides critical opinion: he is both a morally challenging stylist and a commercial hack, a wise commentator on society and a garrulous leprechaun. Such judgements are located in the cultural politics of Australia but also linked to ideas about what a literary career should look like. Thomas Keneally's Career and the Literary Machine charts Keneally's production and reception across his three major markets, noting clashes between national interests and international reach, continuity of themes and variety of topics, settings and genres, the writer's interests and the publishers' push to create a brand, celebrity fame and literary reputation, and the tussle around fiction, history, allegory and the middlebrow. Keneally is seen as playing a long game across several events rather than honing one specialist skill, a strategy that has sustained for more than 50 years his ambition to earn a living from writing.

Paul Sharrad, Senior Fellow in English, Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts, University of Wollongong, Australia, has published widely on postcolonial literatures.

'Paul Sharrad skillfully combines insights from biography, literary history, book history and celebrity studies to trace changes in the production and reception of Thomas Keneally's works both within Australia and internationally.' -Elizabeth Webby AM FAHA, Professor Emerita, English Department, University of Sydney, Australia 'Paul Sharrad's landmark study of Thomas Keneally examines his writing in its multiple international and Australian contexts. Likely to be the indispensable evaluation of Keneally's place in Australian culture.' -Janet Wilson, Professor of English and Postcolonial Studies, University of Northampton, UK 'Paul Sharrad's thorough and entertaining survey not only tells us much about Keneally we never knew before but also shows that the study of an author's career can be a new way to measure the stature of a literary artist.' -Nicholas Birns, Associate Professor, School of Professional Studies, New York University, USA 'In this important contribution to book history, Paul Sharrad applies the lens of the literary career to the prolific though often divisive work of Thomas Keneally, charting a course between literary and commercial fiction, history and fiction, authorship and celebrity, and the opposing frames of national and world literatures.' -Robert Dixon, Professor of Australian Literature, University of Sydney, Australia