Morris West
Morris West was an influential Australian author and playwright, born on April 26, 1916, in St. Kilda, Melbourne. His early life was marked by familial challenges, leading him to pursue education at the Christian Brothers' College and later the University of Melbourne. After leaving a religious order in 1939, West experienced a turbulent period, including a nervous breakdown, before serving as a lieutenant and decryption officer in the army during World War II. He transitioned into writing and journalism, eventually becoming a Vatican correspondent for the Daily Mail in London.
West's literary career took off with the publication of his first novel in 1945, and he gained widespread recognition for works such as "The Shoes of the Fisherman" (1963), which explored themes of power and faith, and was notably prescient about the election of a Polish pope. His novels, often described as moral thrillers, tackled complex issues such as the Vietnam War and contemporary political dilemmas. A vocal critic of the Vietnam War, West remained an engaged public figure throughout his life, addressing various social and political topics in his writings. He passed away on October 8, 1999, leaving behind a legacy as a significant literary voice in Australia and beyond.
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Subject Terms
Morris West
Novelist
- Born: April 26, 1916
- Birthplace: St. Kilda, Melbourne, Australia
- Died: October 9, 1999
- Place of death: Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Biography
Morris West was born on April 26, 1916, in St. Kilda, Melbourne, Australia, the son of Charles Langlo and Florence Guilfoyle Hanlon West. His parents separated within a few years of his birth, and this was an unhappy period in West’s life. He attended the Christian Brothers’ College, completing his initial studies in 1929 and then becoming a postulant, studying with tutors for four years until he took his annual vows in 1933. He attended the University of Melbourne, graduating with a bachelor’s degree, and he then taught mathematics and modern languages in New South Wales and Tasmania. In 1939, West left the religious order, deciding not to take his final vows. This decision was prompted by notions of himself that a biographer described as, “a man without a shadow,” a man with “no past to which [he] could make reference and no future to which [he] could direct [himself].”
West eventually suffered a nervous breakdown. He later joined the army, where he was made lieutenant and worked as a decryption officer. Australian politician William Morris Hughes recruited West to serve as his private secretary and commissioned him to write his biography. However, Hughes fired West a short time later. West then worked at various jobs, including a stint as a radio publicity officer in Melbourne, and he was the founder and managing director of Australian Radio Productions. He married Joyce Lawford on August 14, 1952, and the couple had a son, Christopher, before leaving Australia for England in 1955.
West had published his first novel, Moon in My Pocket, in 1945 under the pseudonym Julian Morris. By 1956, he was writing and publishing other work and in 1957 he accepted a position at the Daily Mail newspaper in London, serving as the newspaper’s Vatican correspondent and collecting ideas and experiences for his future work. During this period, West produced several books, among them Children of the Sun, a novel that Eleanor Roosevelt deemed one of the most moving stories she had ever read. West’s writing often featured characters who were angry because they had lost control of their lives. His novels have been called moral thrillers, narrated by discontented characters.
In 1963, he published what is perhaps his best-known novel, The Shoes of the Fisherman, the first book in the three- book Vatican series. That novel, the story of a Polish pope, proved to be prescient in later years when John Paul II became the first Polish pope. The Shoes of the Fisherman was adapted for a film of the same name.
West returned to Australia in 1965, becoming one of the first public figures to overtly protest Australian involvement in the Vietnam War. Through the next three decades, he remained one of the more engaged and engaging speakers on the morality and mandates of numerous civil involvements. In his literature, he examined the politics and perils of the Vietnam War, Richard Nixon, terrorism, the situation in Israel, and multinationalism and mercantilism in Italy and New York, among other subjects. West died on October 8, 1999.