Interview with Patrick White, 1973 Nobel Prize winner (1912-1990)

As a writer, Patrick White has never given an interview or written for magazines and newspapers. His life remained private until October 1973, when the Swedish Academy awarded him the Nobel Prize for Literature, the first and only time an Australian had won the prize. He had never given an interview to foreign or Australian television and the day after the announcement in Stockholm, White accepted journalist Mike Carlton into his home in Sydney and gave this interview for ABC's "Four Corners".

The Swedish Academy says of White: "It was he who, for the first time, gave the Australian continent an authentic voice which carries throughout the world, at the same time as his achievement contributes to development, both artistically and in what concerns ideas, contemporary literature./"

White is today considered one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. He was born in London in 1912 to Australian parents, was close friends in his youth with the Irish painter Francis Bacon, was later stationed during World War II in Egypt and later moved to Australia with his partner, Manolis Lascaris, where he became a full-time painter. writer in 1948. By the time he won the Nobel Prize, he had written 9 novels, a collection of short stories and 4 plays. He died at his home in Centennial Park in Sydney in 1990.

Please take the opportunity to connect and share this video with your friends and family if you find it useful.