Peter Goldsworthy


Peter David Goldsworthy AM is an Australian writer and medical practitioner. He has won awards for his short stories, poetry, novels, and opera libretti.
Goldsworthy has been described in A Reader's Guide to Contemporary Australian Poetry as "one of the most skilled and satisfying poets in Australia".
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’

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.
His 1995 novel Wish was also recently reissued in the Text Publishing Text Classics series.
Three Dog Night won the 2004 FAW Christina Stead Award, and was long-listed for the Dublin/IMPAC prize.  His first novel for ten years, Minotaur, was published in 2019.

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 to the conceptual. The general impression is of a fastidious insistence that the particular comes first, and any general comment that follows had better be particular too.
Goldsworthy has published five collections of short stories, including The List of All Answers: Collected Stories, in 2004. His most recent collection, Gravel, was short-listed for the ASAL Gold Medal. His stories have been widely anthologised.

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.
He wrote the chamber opera, The ringtone cycle : for soprano, violin, cello, piano, and iPhone with composer Graeme Koehne.
Ned Kelly, a new opera written with composer Luke Styles, will be premiered by lost & found opera company at the Perth Festival in 2019.

Film writing

Goldsworthy wrote or co-wrote the script to several films:
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 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, and in Canada with Edmonton’s Northern Lights. Petra Kalive’s adaptation of Three Dog Night was premiered at fortyfivedownstairs in Melbourne, and also performed in the Adelaide Festival Centre Space.
Steve Rodgers adaptation of the novella Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam won the inaugural Lysicrates Prize in 2015, and premiered at the national Theatre of Parramatta in 2018, directed by Darren Yap. The play will be restaged by Belvoir in February 2020.
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. The Kiss was also made into a multi-award winning short film by Ashlee Page.
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.

Awards and nominations