Thomas Keneally Wales in Sydney. In 1996 the State Library purchased this material from a private collector. Keneally has been awarded honorary doctorates including one from the National University of Ireland. Thomas Keneally Thomas Michael Keneally, AO (born 7 October 1935) is a prolific Australian novelist, playwright, and essayist. 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", which won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Both Keneally's parents (Edmund Thomas Keneally and Elsie
Poldek Pfefferberg death in 1974 seemed to end any possibility of a film. In 1980 when Thomas Keneally went into Pfefferberg's shop to ask about the price of briefcases, Pfefferberg learned that Keneally was a novelist and showed him his extensive files on Schindler. Keneally was interested, and Pfefferberg became an advisor for the book, accompanying Keneally to Poland where they visited Kraków and the sites associated with the Schindler story. Keneally dedicated "Schindler's Ark" to Pfefferberg: "who by zeal and persistence caused this book to be written." Pfefferberg explained the reasons behind his efforts to have the Schindler story told as: