Tom Keneally Centre
A refuge for stories and the people who tell them.
Officially opened on 18 August 2011 by Professor Marie Bashir, then Governor of New South Wales.in 2011, the Tom Keneally Centre is the home of the world-renowned author’s research collection. It is a quiet pocket of the city where history lingers and new stories begin.
Step inside a space designed to echo the warmth and character of Tom’s original library. Here, you will find the desk where great stories were crafted, surrounded by his personal collection. Shelves hold the books that shaped him, their margins alive with his own notes. Letters, research and memorabilia offer a rare glimpse into the mind of one of Australia’s most beloved writers.
This is a living centre. Writers come to work, ideas are tested and stories are shared through author talks, writing workshops, language classes and literary exhibitions. It is a testament to a shared belief in open knowledge, lifelong learning and the power of story to inspire change.
We invite you to visit, to browse and to lose yourself in a world where literature lives on.
Visitors are welcome to browse the collection, settle in and lose themselves in Keneally’s world.
The Tom Keneally Centre is a place where stories live on.
Visit the Tom Keneally Centre
Opening Hours (By Appointment Only)
Tuesdays, Thursdays & Fridays
10.30am – 2.30pm
Address
Level 3, 280 Pitt Street, Sydney NSW 2000
To schedule an appointment, please get in touch with our library team:
Call: 02 9262 7300
Email: library@smsa.org.au
Visit: SMSA Members Library, Level 2
About Thomas Keneally
Thomas Keneally is one of Australia’s most celebrated and enduring literary voices, a writer whose work has shaped the nation’s storytelling for more than six decades.
Born in 1935, Keneally has published over 35 novels, 18 works of non-fiction and several plays since his debut in 1964. His writing moves between history and imagination, truth and invention, always guided by a deep moral curiosity and a profound empathy for the human condition.
He is perhaps best known internationally for Schindler’s Ark which won the Man Booker Prize in 1982 and was later adapted into the Academy Award-winning film Schindler’s List by Steven Spielberg. But Keneally’s literary achievements go far beyond a single masterpiece.
His novels The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, Gossip from the Forest, and Confederates were all shortlisted for the Booker Prize while Bring Larks and Heroes and Three Cheers for the Paraclete earned him the Miles Franklin Award in consecutive years. Later works such as The Widow and Her Hero, Bettany’s Book, An Angel in Australia, and The People’s Train continued to reflect his restless intellect and unwavering compassion.
Thomas Keneally’s body of work is vast but it is unified by one clear purpose: to illuminate the complexities of history through the lives of those who lived it. His voice remains vital, not only in Australian letters, but in the global tradition of storytelling.
As well as being a celebrated novelist, Thomas Keneally is a gifted historian whose non-fiction brings depth, empathy and narrative force to the past.
His landmark history The Great Shame (1998) traces the story of Irish convict transportation with rare moral clarity, giving voice to individuals who endured exile, injustice and resistance. That same sense of intimacy and scale is present in The Commonwealth of Thieves (2005), which revisits Australia’s penal origins through the experiences of Aboriginal people, convicts and colonial officials, always with the goal of bringing history closer to the reader.
In recent years, Keneally has collaborated with his daughter Meg Keneally on the popular Monsarrat series — a collection of historical mysteries set in 19th-century Australia. Titles include The Soldier’s Curse (2016), The Unmourned (2017), The Power Game (2018), and The Ink Stain (2019).
His most recent novel, Fanatic Heart (2022), reimagines the life of Irish patriot John Mitchel, with a particular focus on his time in exile on Van Diemen’s Land. The book continues Keneally’s lifelong work of animating history through character, conflict, and conscience.
Over the course of his career, Keneally has received numerous accolades, including the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Royal Society of Literature Prize, the Scripter Award, the Mondello International Prize and the 2022 ARA Historical Novel Prize for Corporal Hitler’s Pistol.
He lives in Sydney with his wife Judy and is the proud number one ticket-holder of the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles.
