ABSTRACT
Lascaris, who was in the Royal Greek Army, and who was to become his life-long companion. In 1948 White returned to Australia for good. Lascaris followed him a month later, and the two set up house together in Sydney where they lived until White’s death. Although they were open about their relationship White did not write directly about homosexuality until quite late in his life, and he did not support gay rights activism. His closetedness may have guaranteed his place in society and his position as a writer at a time when homosexuality was much reviled, particularly in a relatively macho society such as Australia can be. Between 1939 and 1986 he wrote twelve novels that earned him a reputation as one of the great Australian writers of the twentieth century. His works include The Aunt’s Story (1948), Voss (1957), The Vivisector (1970), and The Twyborn Affair (1979). In 1973 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. White finally came out as gay in 1981 with his autobiography Flaws in the Glass. His final novel Memoirs of Many in One (1986) proved controversial to homophobic critics.
