Unpublished novel by Patrick White to be released
01 Mar 2011
The Hanging Garden was among papers earmarked for destruction
An unpublished novel by Nobel Prize-winning author Patrick White is to be released after being saved from destruction.
The Hanging Garden will be published next year, the centenary of his birth.
Barely a dozen people have read the book, described as a "little masterpiece", that turned up in the hoard of White's papers in the Australian National Library.
"I have no doubt it deserves to see the light of day," said White's literary executor Barbara Mobbs.
"It's pretty simple. I wouldn't let it go otherwise."
The Hanging Garden was among a pile of White's papers that Ms Mobbs was instructed to destroy when he died, in 1990.
After thinking about it for a decade she decided to save the papers. The decision to take yet another step and publish The Hanging Garden also took many years to consider.
Sydney University academics Margaret Harris and Elizabeth Webby had the handwritten manuscript transcribed last year with funding from an Australian Research Council grant.
A publisher for The Hanging Garden has yet to be confirmed.
Australian author Patrick White was widely regarded as a major English-language novelist of the 20th century.
From 1935 until his death, aged 78, he published 12 novels, two short-story collections and eight plays.
White, who was born in England, received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1973 - the only Australian to have been awarded the prize.
He used the prize money to establish a trust to fund the Patrick White Award, given annually to established creative writers who have received little public recognition.
ISBN: 9780099324713
By Jason Taylors
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