Patrick Victor Martindale White , was an Australian author who is widely regarded as one of the most important English-language novelists of the 20th century. From 1935 until his death, he published 12 novels, two short-story collections and eight plays. White's fiction employs humour, florid prose, shifting narrative vantage points and a stream of consciousness technique. In 1973, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, the only Australian to have been awarded the prize. White was born in Knightsbridge, London, to an English-Australian father and an English mother. His family later... moved to Sydney, Australia when he was six months old. As a child he lived in one flat with his sister, nanny and a maid; while his parents lived in an adjoining flat. At the age of four White developed asthma, a condition that had taken the life of his maternal grandfather. White's health was fragile throughout his childhood which, while it precluded his participation in many childhood activities, stimulated his imagination. He would perform private rites in the garden and would dance for his mother’s friends.
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