Winner of the Booker PrizeWinner of the Los Angeles Times Book Award for FictionSchindler's Listis a remarkable work of fiction based on the true story of German industrialist and war profiteer, Oskar Schindler, who, confronted with the horror of the extermination camps, gambled his life and fortune to rescue 1,300 Jews from the gas chambers.Working with the actual testimony of Schindler's Jews, Thomas Keneally artfully depicts the courage and shrewdness of an unlikely savior, a man who is a flawed mixture of hedonism and decency and who, in the presence of unutterable evil, transcends the limits of his own humanity. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

A mesmerizing novel based on the true story of Oskar Schindler, a German industralist who saved and succored more than 1000 Jews from the Nazis at enormous financial and emotional expense. (June) From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

How the German Oskar Schindler came to save more than one thousand Polish Jews during the Holocaust is one of the most fascinating stories of the century. Although millions are now learning about Schindler through Steven Spielberg's recent Academy AwardR-winning film, his achievement first gained prominence with Keneally's 1982 ``facticious'' novel (which is also the basis for the film). Keneally's account is less melodramatic than the motion picture, and although he does not fully explain how a hedonistic German could have been so altered by the plight of the Jewish workers in his factory, he does make Schindler less enigmatic than the big-screen version. Ben Kingsley, one of the film's stars, reads in a calculatedly matter-of-fact tone, letting the story's power alone convey its complicated emotions. Highly recommended.-Michael Adams, Fairleigh Dickinson Univ. Lib., Madison, N.J. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

Born in Sydney, Australia, in 1935, Thomas Keneally was educated at various schools on the New South Wales north coast. Although he initially studied for the Catholic priesthood, he abandoned that idea in 1960, turning to teaching and clerical work before writing and publishing his first novel, The Place at Whitton, in 1964. Since that time Keneally has been a full-time writer, aside from the occasional stint as a lecturer or writer-in-residence.

Considered one of the most successful modern Australian writers of all time, Keneally wrote more than a dozen novels before publishing the story that became his most controversial, but best-known and most influential, to date. Published in 1982, Schindler's Ark, the story of a man, Oskar Schindler, who risked his life to protect beleaguered Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland was considered by some to be a work of journalistic reporting. Eleven years later, Stephen Spielberg adapted Keneally's book into the hugely successful, yet visibly disturbing, film, Schindler's List.

Other books written by Keneally include Gossip from the Forest, A Dutiful Daughter, A River Town, and By the Line. Keneally has also written a children's book and a screenplay.

In 1983, Thomas Keneally was awarded the order of Australia for his services to Australian Literature. He has won international acclaim for his novels, including Schindler's List, the basis for the Steven Spielberg film and winner of the Booker Prize, and The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith.

(Bowker Author Biography) Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.