Australian author White's private papers on display

CANBERRA, Nov 3 (Reuters) Thirty three boxes of private papers belonging to Australian author Patrick White, the nation's only Nobel literature laureate, today went on display -- 16 years after the tempestuous writer ordered them burned.

A literary giant and to some a craggy, curmudgeonly ''ass'', White helped Australians understand their sprawling nation, warts and all, in a series of novels, short stories and plays.

White, who died in 1990, is widely regarded as one of the greatest English-language novelists of the 20th century.

Born in London before moving as a child to Sydney, he penned ''Tree of Man'', ''Voss'' and ''Riders in the Chariot'' to international applause, but criticism at home that his at-times brutal clarity was ''un-Australian''.

Now Australians are to learn something of his private life through letters, two unpublished books, postcards and plays. White's will ordered the material to be burnt after his death, but his literary executor could not bring herself to destroy it.

Instead she stored what has been described as Australia's greatest literary treasure, taking years to sort it, before finally selling it to the National Library in Canberra.

''The old bastard. Patrick White told the world over and over again that none of this existed,'' biographer David Marr wrote in Fairfax newspapers today, Australian National Library curator Marie-Louise Ayres said the acquisition of 33 archive boxes from White's literary agent and executor Barbara Mobbs was an unexpected coup.

Ayres said Mobbs was given White's papers, including two unpublished novels, by the author's partner of 49 years, Manoly Lascaris, before her death. White had asked Mobbs in his will to destroy them, like he had destroyed many other folios of work.

''I don't think he did it out of spite. He was a deeply serious man, deeply serious about his writing,'' she said.

''I think he did truly believe that his final works were what he wanted to be judged on, and fair enough.'' A fiercely private man, White could be a vociferous critic who drew and cast off friends with startling abruptness.

''You are an ass,'' a private letter from a Newcastle friend Piers Hill began after White's 1974 Nobel nod brought him fame.

But another letter to White on display from ''Satanic Verses'' author Salman Rushdie showed the profound effect White had on many of his readers.

''I cannot think when last a book so moved me, or showed me so very much. You have taken my breath away,'' Rushdie wrote to White on his book, Voss.

Reuters SHB DB1027