Peter Goldsworthy

Peter David Goldsworthy was born in 1951 in Minlaton, South Australia, and grew up in various Australian country towns. he completed his schooling in Darwin in the Northern Territory.{{cite web | title=Peter Goldsworthy | website=AustLit| date=30 Jun 2014 | url=https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/A22244 | access-date=6 November 2023}}Goldsworthy, Peter (2003) Three Dog Night, Penguin Books (Brief bio)

He graduated in medicine from the University of Adelaide in 1974.

Goldsworthy worked in alcohol and drug rehabilitation for several years after graduation, 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 novels have sold hundreds of thousands of copies in Australia, and, with his poetry and short stories, have been translated into many European and Asian languages.{{cite web|title=Peter Goldsworthy, Author |publisher=Penguin|url=http://www.penguin.com.au/contributors/peter-goldsworthy|access-date=9 November 2010}}

He has won major literary prizes across most genres: for poetry, the short story, the novel, plays and opera.

His first novel Maestro (1989), was loosely based on observations acquired by attending his daughter Anna's piano lessons with Russian emigre pianist Eleonora Sivan (born 1941),{{cite web | last=Nunn | first=Louise | title=Russian emigre who became key player | website=Adelaide Now| date=24 June 2011 | url=https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/ipad/how-a-russian-emigre-became-a-key-player/news-story/9a958b9952df07b7bdac761884661eac?nk=4cbb7101e6c5f5a04b46288623ffaf24-1699515861 | access-date=9 November 2023}} who had moved to Adelaide in 1981 as a refugee.{{cite web | title=Adelaide makes the most of arrival in 1981 of refugee Eleonora Sivan from musical greatness of Leningrad | website=Adelaide AZ | url=https://adelaideaz.com/articles/adelaide-makes-the-most-of-arrival-in-1981-of-refugee-eleonora-sivan-from-musical-greatness-of-leningrad | access-date=9 November 2023}} The novel 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.{{cite web|title=Your Favourite Australian Book|publisher=ABC|url=http://www.abc.net.au/radio/book/asalist.pdf|access-date=8 July 2008}}

His 1995 novel Wish was also recently reissued in the Text Publishing Text Classics series.{{cite book |title=Wish: Text Classics |date=24 July 2013 |publisher=Text Publishing |isbn=9781922147035 |url=https://www.textpublishing.com.au/books/wish |access-date= 9 October 2018}}

His 1992 novel Honk If You Are Jesus was reissued by the Untapped: Australian Literary Heritage Project in 2022.{{cite web|title=Honk If You Are Jesus|url=https://untapped.org.au/book/honk-if-you-are-jesus|access-date=11 September 2023}}

Three Dog Night won the 2004 FAW Christina Stead Award, and was long-listed for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

His first novel in ten years, Minotaur, was published in 2019.{{Cite web|url=https://www.penguin.com.au/books/minotaur-9780143795698|title=Minotaur by Peter Goldsworthy|website=www.penguin.com.au|language=en|access-date=2020-01-27}}

His novels have been widely translated, and adapted for the stage.

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.{{cite web|author=Clive James|author-link=Clive James|title=Peter Goldsworthy|url=http://www.clivejames.com/poetry/goldsworthy|access-date=27 June 2008}}

Goldsworthy's poetry has been widely published in the English-speaking world, from journals such as Poetry magazine{{Cite web|date=2020-11-18|title=Search|url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/search?query=Peter+Goldsworthy|access-date=2020-11-18|website=Poetry Foundation|language=en}} and The London Review of Books{{Cite news|last=Goldsworthy|first=Peter|date=2001-06-07|title=The Operation|language=en|volume=23|work=London Review of Books|issue=11|url=https://lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v23/n11/peter-goldsworthy/the-operation|access-date=2020-11-18|issn=0260-9592}} to anthologies ranging from The Twentieth Century in Poetry{{Cite book|last=|first=|title=The 20th Century in Poetry|publisher=Ebury Digital|year=2012|isbn=9781448117956|editor-last=Rae|editor-first=Simon|location=|pages=}} to Roger McGough's recently edited Happy Poems. His New Selected Poems was published in Australia and the UK in 2001; and his Collected Stories appeared in Australia in 2004.

Goldsworthy has been described in A Reader's Guide to Contemporary Australian Poetry as "one of the most skilled and satisfying poets in Australia"{{cite web|title=Peter Goldsworthy|url=http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=177|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080609021017/http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=177|archive-date=9 June 2008|access-date=27 June 2008|publisher=The Poetry Archive}} and by fellow Australian poet Les Murray as “a poet of crystalline intelligence, but one who can move as well as shine."{{Cite web|title=Peter Goldsworthy · Pitt Street Poetry|url=https://pittstreetpoetry.com/poet/peter-goldsworthy/|access-date=2020-11-18|website=Pitt Street Poetry|language=en-US}}

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.

Goldsworthy has published five collections of short stories, including The List of All Answers: Collected Stories, in 2004. The 1992 collection, Little Deaths, was shortlisted for the Christina Stead Award, the Steele Rudd Award, and the SA Premier's prize for fiction. His most recent collection, Gravel, was short-listed for the ASAL Gold Medal. As with his poetry, his stories have been widely anthologised in Australia and overseas. In Australian Short Fiction: a History, Bruce Bennett wrote that "No Australian author has written more convincingly about the power of hormones or the fear of death".{{Cite book|last1=Bennett|first1=Bruce|url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/33080006|title=Australian short fiction : a history|last2=collection|first2=Brissenden|date=2002|publisher=St. Lucia, Qld. : University of Queensland Press|isbn=978-0-7022-3301-2|language=en}}

Goldsworthy also writes opera libretti. He wrote the libretti for the Richard Mills operas, Summer of the Seventeenth Doll and Batavia,{{cite web|title=Overview of notated art music in Australia: Opera, operetta and song|publisher=Music Council of Australia|url=http://www.mca.org.au/web/component/option,com_kb/task,article/article,99/#ph|access-date=27 June 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080725051714/http://www.mca.org.au/web/component/option,com_kb/task,article/article,99/#ph|archive-date=25 July 2008|url-status=dead}} 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.

He wrote the chamber opera, The ringtone cycle : for soprano, violin, cello, piano, and iPhone with composer Graeme Koehne.{{cite web |title=The ringtone cycle |url= https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/192516275?q&versionId=210550108|access-date=9 October 2018}}

Ned Kelly, a new opera written with composer Luke Styles, was premiered by lost & found opera company at the Perth Festival in 2019.{{cite web |title=Ned Kelly |url= https://www.lostandfoundopera.com/ned-kelly |access-date= 9 October 2018}}

Goldsworthy co-wrote the script to the films:{{IMDb name|0326381}}

• Ebbtide (1994){{IMDb title|0109703|Ebbtide|(1994)}}
• Passion (1999){{IMDb title|0148583|Passion|(1999)}}
• Maestro, upcoming

Goldsworthy has been chair of the Libraries Board of South Australia, and in 2001 was appointed chair of the Australia Council's Literature Board.

His novels Maestro, Wish, Honk If You Are Jesus, Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam and Three Dog Night have been adapted for the stage. Honk was premiered by the State Theatre Company 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.

Humphrey Bower's award-winning adaptation of Wish for his company, Night Train, had subsequent seasons with the Perth Theatre Company,{{cite web |title=Wish - Perth Theatre Company |date= 31 March 2014 |url= http://petergoldsworthy.com/news/2014/3/31/wish-perth-theatre-company |access-date= 9 October 2018}} and in Canada with Edmonton's Northern Lights.{{cite web |title=Northern Light Theatre |url= http://northernlighttheatre.com/current-season/index4.php|access-date=9 October 2018}} Petra Kalive's adaptation of Three Dog Night was premiered at fortyfivedownstairs in Melbourne, and also performed in the Adelaide Festival Centre's Space Theatre.{{cite web |title= Past work - Petra Kalive |url= http://www.petrakalive.com/archived-works/#/winter/ |access-date= 9 October 2018}}

Steve Rogers' adaptation of the novella Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam won the inaugural Lysicrates Prize in 2015,{{cite web |title= Steve Rogers takes out the inaugural Lysicrates Prize |url= https://www.sydneyartsguide.com.au/steve-rogers-wins-the-lysicrates-prize-2015-with-his-play-jesus-wants-me-for-a-moonbeam/ |access-date= 9 October 2018}} and premiered at the National Theatre of Parramatta in 2018, directed by Darren Yap.{{cite web |title=Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam - National Theatre of Parramatta |url= https://riversideparramatta.com.au/NTofP/show/jesus-wants-me-for-a-sunbeam |access-date=9 October 2018}} The play was restaged by Belvoir Theatre Company in February 2020.{{Cite web|url=https://belvoir.com.au/productions/jesus-wants-me-for-a-sunbeam/|title=Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam|website=Belvoir St Theatre|language=en-US|access-date=2020-01-27}}

The short story The Kiss was adapted for stage at Belvoir St Theatre, along with short stories of the same name by Chekhov, Maupassant and Kate Chopin.{{cite web |title= The Kiss Belvoir Sydney 2011 |website= Belvoir St Theatre |url= https://belvoir.com.au/productions/the-kiss |access-date= 9 October 2018}} The Kiss was also made into a multi-award-winning short film by Ashlee Page.{{cite web |title= The Kiss (2010) |website= IMDb |url= https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1595003 |access-date= 9 October 2018}}

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.{{cite web|url = http://www.abc.net.au/rn/airplay/stories/2002/531247.htm|title = Airplay|access-date = 11 August 2010|date=August 2010|publisher = Australian Broadcasting Corporation}}

{{anchor|maestrofilm}}

{{as of|November 2023}}, a film version of Maestro is in pre-production. The screenplay co-written by Goldsworthy and director Catherine Jarvis, with Klaus Maria Brandauer playing The Maestro and Madeleine Madden as Rosie.{{IMDb title|3532290|Maestro}}

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

• 1979: Western Australian Sesquicentenary Literary Prize for the short-story Memoirs of a small 'm' marxist.
• 1982: Commonwealth Poetry Prize, for Readings from Ecclesiastes
• 1982: FAW Anne Elder Award, joint winner for Readings from Ecclesiastes
• 1982: South Australian Premier's Award, for Readings from Ecclesiastes
• 1984: Government Biennial Literature Prize (South Australia), for Readings from Ecclesiastes
• 1988: Australian Bicentennial Literary Prize for Poetry
• 1991: NBC Banjo Awards, NBC Turnbull Fox Phillips Poetry Prize, shortlisted for This Goes with That
• 1998: ABC / ABA Bicentennial Literary Award, Poetry Australia Literary Award
• 2002: Robert Helpmann Award for Best Opera and Best New Australian Work for Batavia{{cite web|title=Helpmann Award Winners (2002)|publisher=Live Performance Australia|url=http://www.helpmannawards.com.au/default.aspx?s=winners&year=2002|access-date=15 July 2008|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110612072621/http://www.helpmannawards.com.au/default.aspx?s=winners&year=2002|archive-date=12 June 2011}}
• 2002: Green Room Award for Special Creative Achievement for Batavia
• 2003: Colin Roderick Award, shortlisted for Three Dog Night
• 2004: Miles Franklin Award, Shortlisted for Three Dog Night
• 2004: FAW Christina Stead Award for Three Dog Night
• 2004: Courier-Mail Book of the Year, shortlisted for Three Dog Night
• 2004: Queensland Premier's Literary Awards, shortlisted for Three Dog Night
• 2004: New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, shortlisted for Three Dog Night
• 2005: International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, longlisted for Three Dog Night
• 2009: Prime Minister's Literary Awards, shortlisted, for Everything I Knew
• 2010: Member of the Order of Australia, "For service to literature as an author and poet, through arts administration, and to the community"

Goldsworthy's eldest daughter Anna Goldsworthy is a successful concert pianist as well as an accomplished writer. They worked together on a stage adaptation of Goldsworthy's novel Maestro.{{Cite web |title=Leadership |website= Janet Clarke Hall |publisher= University of Melbourne |url=https://jch.unimelb.edu.au/Leadership~83 |access-date= 6 November 2023}}

===Novels and novellas===

• {{cite book |title=Maestro |location= |publisher= |date=1989 }}
• Magpie (1992)
• Honk If You are Jesus (1992)
• Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam (1993)
• Wish (1995)
• Keep it Simple, Stupid (1996)
• Three Dog Night (2003)
• Everything I Knew (2008)
• The Kiss (2012)
• Minotaur (2019)

• Readings from Ecclesiastes (1982)
• This Goes with That: Selected Poems 1970–1990 (1991)
• After the Ball (1992)
• If, Then: Poems and Songs (1996)
• New Selected Poems (2001)
• Tattered Joys (2002)
• The Rise of the Machines and other Love Poems (2015)
• Anatomy of a Metaphor (2017)

• Archipelagoes (1982)
• Zooing (1986)
• Bleak Rooms (1988)
• Little Deaths (1993)
• One of My Best Friends (1994)
• Navel Gazing: Essays, Half Truths and Mystery Flights (1998)
• The List of All Answers (2004)
• Gravel (2010)

• Navel Gazing (Essays, 1996)
• His Stupid Boyhood: A Memoir (2013)
• {{cite journal |date=October 2022 |title=Salman's throat : living with cancer and a fatwa |department=Commentary |journal=Australian Book Review |volume=447 |pages=36}}Extract from forthcoming book The Cancer Finishing School.
• The Cancer Finishing School (2024)

• {{Cite book|last=Reimer|first=Andrew|title=The Ironic Eye: The Poetry and Prose of Peter Goldsworthy|publisher=Angus & Robertson|date=1994|isbn=0207182507|location=N.S.W.}}
• {{cite journal |author=Gilling, Tom |date=June 2014 |title=Peter Goldsworthy |department=Celebration. Australian Authors Past & Present |journal=Australian Author |volume=46 |issue=1 |pages=28–31 }}

{{reflist|40em|group=lower-alpha}}

{{Reflist}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20080723131740/http://www.australiacouncil.gov.au/the_arts/artists_and_orgs/artists/peter_goldsworthy Australia Council Peter Goldsworthy]

• {{official website|http://www.petergoldsworthy.com}}
• [https://www.poetryfoundation.org/search?query=peter+goldsworthy Peter Goldsworthy] at the Poetry Foundation
• [https://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/goldsworthy-peter/poems Peter Goldsworthy] at The Australian Poetry Library
• [https://poetryarchive.org/poet/peter-goldsworthy/ Peter Goldsworthy] at The Poetry Archive

{{Portal bar|Biography|Literature}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Goldsworthy, Peter}}

Category:1951 births

Category:Living people

Category:20th-century Australian novelists

Category:20th-century Australian male writers

Category:21st-century Australian novelists

Category:Australian male novelists

Category:Australian poets

Category:Australian male short story writers

Category:Australian opera librettists

Category:Australian psychiatrists

Category:Helpmann Award winners

Category:Writers from South Australia

Category:Australian male poets

Category:Australian male dramatists and playwrights

Category:20th-century Australian short story writers

Category:21st-century Australian short story writers

Category:20th-century Australian dramatists and playwrights

Category:21st-century Australian dramatists and playwrights

Category:21st-century Australian male writers

Category:Members of the Order of Australia