Thomas Keneally 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 Margaret Coyle) were born to Irish fathers in the timber and dairy town of Kempsey, New South Wales, and, though born in Sydney, his early years were also spent
Thomas Keneally He worked as a Sydney schoolteacher before his success as a novelist and was a lecturer at the University of New England (1968–70). His father, Edmund Thomas Keneally, flew for the RAAF in World War II, then returned to work in a small business in Sydney. 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. Kenneally's first story was published in the "Bulletin" magazine in 1962 under the pseudonym Bernard Coyle. By February 2014, he had written over 50