Thomas Keneally Schepisi's "The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith" (1978) (based on his own novel) and played Father Marshall in the award-winning film "The Devil's Playground" (1976), also by Schepisi. In 1983, he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO). He is an Australian Living Treasure. Keneally was a member of the Literature Board of the Australia Council from 1985 to 1988 and President of the National Book Council from 1985 to 1989. Keneally was a visiting professor at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) where he taught the graduate fiction workshop for one quarter in 1985. From 1991 to
Thomas Keneally Schindler was that "it was the fact that you couldn't say where opportunism ended and altruism began. And I like the subversive fact that the spirit breatheth where it will. That is, that good will emerge from the most unlikely places". The book was later made into a film titled "Schindler's List" (1993) directed by Steven Spielberg, earning the director his first Best Director Oscar. Keneally's meeting with Pfefferberg and their research tours are detailed in "Searching for Schindler: A Memoir" (2007). Some of the Pfefferberg documents that inspired Keneally are now housed in the State Library of New South