There is more than one author by this name on Goodreads. For the Canadian Poet Laureate see "Patrick^^^^^White".

Patrick Victor Martindale White was an Australian author widely regarded as one of the major English-language novelists of the 20th century, and winner of the 1973 Nobel Prize for Literature.

Born in England while his Australian parents were visiting family, White grew up in Sydney before studying at Cambridge. Publishing his first two novels to critical acclaim in the UK, White then enlisted to serve in World War II, where he met his lifelong partner, the Greek Manoly Lascaris. The pair returned to Australia after the war.

Home again, White published a total of twelve novels, two short story collections, eight plays, as well as a miscellany of non-fiction. His fiction freely employs shifting narrative vantages and the stream of consciousness technique. In 1973, he was awarded the Nobel Prize "for an epic and psychological narrative art which has introduced a new continent into literature."

From 1947 to 1964, White and Lascaris lived a retired life on the outer fringes of Sydney. However after their subsequent move to the inner suburb of Centennial Park, White experienced an increased passion for activism. He became known as an outspoken champion for the disadvantaged, for Indigenous rights, and for the teaching and promotion of art, in a culture he deemed often backward and conservative. In their personal life, White and Lascaris' home became a regular haunt for noted figures from all levels of society.

Although he achieved a great deal of critical applause, and was hailed as a national hero after his Nobel win, White retained a challenged relationship with the Australian public and ordinary readers. In his final decades the books sold well in paperback, but he retained a reputation as difficult, dense, and sometimes inscrutable.

Following White's death in 1990, his reputation was briefly buoyed by David Marr's well-received biography, although he disappeared off most university and school syllabuses, with his novels mostly out of print, by the end of the century. Interest in White's books was revived around 2012, the year of his centenary, with all now available again.

Sources: Wikipedia, David Marr's biography, The Patrick White Catalogue