Literary Studies

A difficult writer

Patrick White’s address to the ineffable

by Martin Thomas •

September 2025, no. 479

On Patrick White’s Dilemmas: A personal essay by Vrasidas Karalis

Brandl & Schlesinger, $26.99, 224 pp

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Literary Studies

A difficult writer

Patrick White’s address to the ineffable

by Martin Thomas •

September 2025, no. 479

‘Lonely Country’ is the term Arnhem landers use for empty or uncared-for places. Sometimes the custodians have died. In other cases, the land is simply too difficult to get to or inhabit. Whatever the reason, Lonely Country brings sadness. There is no one to burn the bush or manage it; no one to call out to the spirits of the old people who remain on their Country, isolated from the living.

Martin Thomas

Martin Thomas is Professor of History at the Australian National University. He is a cultural historian and documentary maker whose work spans landscape history, exploration, biography, and cross-cultural encounter. He has won numerous prizes including NSW Premier’s awards in history and literature, ABR’s Calibre Prize for his essay ‘Because it’s your country’, and the National Biography Award for The Many Worlds of R.H. Mathews. He is presently based at King’s College London, where he co-directs the Menzies Australia Institute.