Peter Goldsworthy

Life

Goldsworthy was born in Minlaton, South Australia, and grew up in various Australian country towns, finishing his schooling in Darwin in the Northern Territory. He graduated in medicine from the University of Adelaide in 1974, and worked in alcohol and drug rehabilitation for several years, but, with his poetry being published in Westerly and the Friendly Street Poetry Reader, he started dividing his working time equally between general practice and writing.

Goldsworthy's eldest daughter Anna is a successful concert pianist and also an accomplished writer. They worked together on a stage adaptation of Goldsworthy's novel Maestro.

Writing career

Goldsworthy's novels have sold over 400,000 copies in Australia alone, and, with his poetry and short stories, have been translated into many European and Asian languages. He has won major literary prizes across most genres: for poetry, the short story, the novel, plays and opera.

Novels

His first novel Maestro was reissued as part of the Angus & Robertson Australian Classics series, and was voted one of the Top 40 Australian books of all time by members of the Australian Society of Authors.

Poetry and short stories

His New Selected Poems were published in Australia and the UK in 2001; and his Collected Stories appeared in Australia in 2004.

The Poetry Archive describes his poetry as follows:

There's a pressing sense of mortality in his work and a desire to ask the big questions, even as he satirises them. Drawn to the discipline of science, Goldsworthy's poems are full of the language of the laboratory —matter, evidence, elements, chemicals— the stuff we are made of, but at the same time frustrated by these limitations into asking what else we might be. He's interested in 'The Dark Side of the Head', the things we can only know in flashes, like glimpsing a skink, but he also retains a rationalist's scepticism of the ecstatic – that "thoughtlessly exquisite" evening sky in 'Sunset' won't fool him into rapture.

The Australian expatriate writer Clive James comments that Goldsworthy's poetry is often seen as a sideline, but argues that it is "at the centre of his achievement". James writes:

His precise wit operates on every level, from the sonic (a concealed dove really does say hidden here, hidden here) to the conceptual (the human body really is packed tight like an attempt on the record of filling a Mini). The general impression is of a fastidious insistence that the particular comes first, and any general comment that follows had better be particular too.

Libretti

Goldsworthy also writes opera libretti. He wrote the libretto for the Richard Mills operas, Summer of the Seventeenth Doll and Batavia, the latter winning Mills and Goldsworthy the 2002 Helpmann Award for Best Opera and Best New Australian Work. The premiere at the Sydney Opera House on 19 August 2006 was conducted by the composer and attended by the librettist.

Film writing

Goldsworthy wrote or co-wrote the script to several films:

Adaptations of his works

His novels Wish, Honk If You Are Jesus, and Three Dog Night have been adapted for the stage. Honk, was premiered by the State Theatre of South Australia in its 2006 season. It won the 2006 Ruby Award for Best New Work, and the 2006 Advertiser Oscart Award for Best Play.

In 2009 Honk If You Are Jesus was adapted as a radio play by Mike Ladd for ABC Radio National and was broadcast by the BBC World Service. The novella "Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam" has also been adapted as a radio-play by Mike Ladd for the ABC.

Goldsworthy's poetry has been set to music by leading Australian composers including Graeme Koehne, Richard Mills, and Matthew Hindson.

In 2008 Ashlee Page was working on the short film The Kiss adapted from the short story of the same name from the collection The List of All Answers.

Awards and nominations