Schindler's Ark

Schindler's Ark (Schindler's List)

First edition cover
Author	Thomas Keneally
Country	Australia
Language	English
Genre	Biographical novel
Publisher	Hodder and Stoughton
Publication date	18 October 1982
Media type	Print (Hardcover and Paperback)
Pages	380 pp (hardcover edition)
ISBN	(hardcover edition)
OCLC	8994901

Schindler's Ark (released in America as Schindler's List) is a Booker Prize-winning historical fiction novel published in 1982 by Australian novelist Thomas Keneally, which was later adapted into the highly successful movie Schindler's List directed by Steven Spielberg. The United States version of the book was called Schindler's List from the beginning; it was later re-issued in Commonwealth countries under that name as well. The novel was also awarded the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction in 1983.

The book tells the story of Oskar Schindler, a Nazi Party member who turns into an unlikely hero by saving 1,200 Jews from concentration camps all over Poland and Germany. It is a work of historical fiction which describes actual people and places with fictional events, dialogue and scenes added by the author and reconstructed dialogue where exact details are unknown. Keneally wrote a number of well received novels before and after Schindler's Ark, however it has since gone on to become his most well-known and celebrated work.

Poldek Pfefferberg, a Holocaust survivor, inspired Keneally to write Schindler's Ark. After the war, Pfefferberg had tried on a number of occasions to interest the screenwriters and film-makers he met through his business in a film based on the story of Schindler and his actions in saving Polish Jews from the Nazis, arranging several interviews with Schindler for American television.

Keneally's meetings with Pfefferberg, research and interviews of Schindler's acquittances are detailed in another of his books titled Searching for Schindler: A Memoir (2007). In October 1980 Keneally went into Pfefferberg's shop in Beverly Hills to ask about the price of briefcases. Keneally had just finished a book-signing in Beverly Hills and was on his way home to Australia. Pfefferberg, learning that Keneally was a novelist, showed him his extensive files on Schindler, kept in two cabinets in his back room. After 50 minutes of entreaties, Pfefferberg was finally able to convince Keneally to write the book; and Pfefferberg became an advisor, accompanying Keneally to Poland where they visited Kraków and other sites associated with the Schindler story. Keneally dedicated Schindler's Ark to Pfefferberg: "who by zeal and persistence caused this book to be written."