Showing results by author "Thomas Keneally" in All Categories

The acclaimed best-selling classic of Holocaust literature, winner of the Booker Prize and the inspiration for the classic film Schindler's List. In the shadow of Auschwitz, a flamboyant German industrialist grew into a living legend to the Jews of Cracow. He was a womaniser, a heavy drinker and a bon viveur, but to them he became a saviour. A stunning novel based on the extraordinary true story of German war profiteer and factory director Oskar Schindler, who came to save more Jews from the gas chambers than any other single person during World War II.

Strhující audioknižní zpracování osudů Oskara Schindlera – kariéristy, válečného zbohatlíka, milovníka elegance, přepychu, alkoholu a krásných žen, jenž ve stínu osvětimských komínů našel svoji lidskost a riskoval nejen majetek, ale i vlastní život, aby nedopustil vyvraždění tisícovky „svých židů“. Román, který je mistrovským, mnohovrstevnatým vylíčením charakterů a osudů jedinců zapojených do obrovité byrokratické mašinerie zla, získal Man Bookerovu Cenu.

This is the story of three terrible famines. The first is an Gorta Mór, the great hunger of Ireland, which began in 1846. The second is the deadly famine that struck Bengal in 1943. The third is the Ethiopian famine, which first sprung up in lethal form in the 1970s under Emperor Haile Selassie and then reappeared under the brutal dictator Mengistu in the 1980s.

Thomas Keneally has been observing, reflecting on and writing about Australia and the human condition for well over 50 years. In this deeply personal, passionately drawn and richly tuned collection, he now turns inwards to reflect on what has been important to him, drawing on a lifetime of engagement with the great issues of our recent history and his own moments of discovery and understanding.

In this vivacious memoir, Thomas Keneally conjures up his youthful self - a red-haired teenager who idolised Gerald Manley Hopkins, had visions of being a sporting hero and dreamed of winning the heart of the alluring Bernadette Curran. The one role he did not see himself playing was priest, despite the encouragement of the Brothers at his Catholic school - until Bernadette announced her intention of becoming a nun. Drawing an affectionate portrait of the people who inspired and influenced him, Keneally beautifully captures the agonies and the ecstacies of adolescence. 

Prim, an aid worker in the Sudan, is contacted by her sister Dimp, who is back in Australia. She has come into possession of revealing documents concerning their ancestors: transported from Manchester, their great-grandfather was the son of a convict, while their great grandmother was not only a convict, too, but Jewish. As the story unfolds, through letters and a journal, of how John Bettany made his fortune and of Sarah's time in the notorious Female Factory, the sisters gain new perspectives on their roots.

Imagine a faraway country that was once a friend of the West becoming the enemy, its people isolated and savagely repressed by a tyrant known as Great Uncle. As one of the country's most celebrated writers and a war hero, the storyteller has a better life than most – until he is made an offer he can't refuse. He must write a great novel, telling of the suffering of his people under the enemy's cruel economic sanctions and portraying Great Uncle as their saviour.

Summer, 1847. People are getting used to the corpses lying by the road and along the ditches. For John Mitchel - lawyer, journalist, activist, politician - the word 'famine' will forever conjure the hollowed faces of Ireland's dead, the liquid Irish of the past now mute on their tongues. Propelled by disgust at the injustice, Mitchel will do all he can to fight for the destitute, the starved, the forgotten. His odyssey will take him all the way to America - that land of promise - but it will draw him into a terrible paradox.

When Alison Strange receives a debt claim she can’t afford to pay from the Australian government’s unemployment office, she’s caught completely off-balance. As she wrestles with a slippery bureaucracy, her history-loving grandfather bolsters her resolve with the story of their ancestor John Strange, an English cobbler who was banished to Australia for his part in a political movement. Drawing inspiration from John’s life, Alison finds her own unique way to demand a future that’s fair for all. 

How quickly the ground shifts beneath our feet. We make choices—in the face of love, or violence, or necessity—and the effects ripple outward. In these moving short stories, acclaimed authors examine the foundations of the past, uncovering the irreversible decisions and life-changing encounters that mark the turning point between before and after.