Schindler's Ark Schindler's Ark Schindler's Ark (released in America as Schindler's List) is a Booker Prize-winning historical fiction novel published in 1982 by Australian novelist Thomas Keneally, which was later adapted into the highly successful movie "Schindler's List" directed by Steven Spielberg. The United States version of the book was called "Schindler's List" from the beginning; it was later reissued in Commonwealth countries under that name as well. The novel was also awarded the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction in 1983. The book tells the story of Oskar Schindler, a Nazi Party member who turns into an unlikely hero by
Schindler's List the "Schindlerjuden", made it his life's mission to tell the story of his savior. Pfefferberg attempted to produce a biopic of Oskar Schindler with MGM in 1963, with Howard Koch writing, but the deal fell through. In 1982, Thomas Keneally published his historical novel "Schindler's Ark", which he wrote after a chance meeting with Pfefferberg in Los Angeles in 1980. MCA president Sid Sheinberg sent director Steven Spielberg a "New York Times" review of the book. Spielberg, astounded by Schindler's story, jokingly asked if it was true. "I was drawn to it because of the paradoxical nature of the character,"