‘Patrick White, the un-Australian writer who did more than any other writer in the twentieth century to create an imaginative language that we can call Australian, who unshackled us from the demand that we write as the English do, who recognised, through his own alienation and also through his profound love for his partner, that we were a migrant and mongrel nation forging our own culture and our own language.’

Christos Tsiolkas spent a year of ‘discovery and rediscovery’ reading Patrick White. In this passionate and original book, he shows how the Nobel Prize winner’s work still speaks to us.

In the Writers on Writers series, leading writers reflect on another Australian writer who has inspired and fascinated them. Provocative and crisp, these books start a fresh conversation between past and present, shed new light on the craft of writing, and introduce some intriguing and talented authors and their work.

Also in the Writers on Writers series

Alice Pung on John Marsden

Erik Jensen on Kate Jennings

Ceridwen Dovey on J. M. Coetzee (forthcoming)

Nam Le on David Malouf (forthcoming)

Michelle de Kretser on Shirley Hazzard (forthcoming)