Remembering Patrick White

Remembering Patrick White presents the first major study of the full range of White¿s work in over twenty-five years, and aims to bring this important author up to date for new generations of readers and scholars. Patrick White is a writer of moods and perspectives and the essays collected here range in their focus over his public presentations, his formal challenges, his spiritual leanings and dramatic gestures. They examine the breadth and significance of White¿s intellectual contribution and consider the ongoing legacy of his thought and his art within national and international frames. As a collection, they focus our attention on what Patrick White means at the juncture of the present, reading his work through contemporary critical perspectives that further underscore the dynamism and substance of his writing. ¿Remembering Patrick White is an essential shot in the arm. It reminds us we do need actively to remember Patrick White, to fetch him back centre-stage in Australian literary scholarship. And yet the essays in this book also look forward, remembering in order to re-energise scholarship on White¿s novels, plays, and life. Indeed, if this timely book reminds us of the vitality ¿ and the resolute contemporaneousness ¿ of White¿s intellectual engagement with Australia and the world, it is to show us how much we still have to gain from bringing new perspectives to bear upon his body of work, which is no less astounding in the twenty-first century than it was during his lifetime.¿ ¿ Ian Henderson, King¿s College London