Christopher Koch

For other people named Christopher Koch, see Christopher Koch (disambiguation).

Christopher John Koch AO (16 July 1932 – 23 September 2013) was an Australian novelist, known for his 1978 novel The Year of Living Dangerously, which was adapted into an Academy Award-winning film by the same name for which he co-wrote the screenplay. He twice won the Miles Franklin Award (for The Doubleman in 1985 and Highways to a War in 1996). In 1995, he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for his contribution to Australian literature, and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters from his alma mater, the University of Tasmania, in 1990.

Christopher Koch AO
Born	Christopher John Koch (1932-07-16)16 July 1932 Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
Died	23 September 2013(2013-09-23) (aged 81) Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
Occupation	Novelist
Language	English
Nationality	Australian
Alma mater	University of Tasmania
Notable works	The Year of Living Dangerously
Notable awards	Miles Franklin Award (1985, 1996)
Spouse	Irene Vilnois ​ ​ (m. 1959; div. 1979)​ Robin Whyte-Butler
Children	Gareth Koch

Early life and education

Koch was born in Hobart, Tasmania, in 1932. He was educated at Clemes College, St Virgil's College, and Hobart High School and later attended the University of Tasmania.^[1] Koch's admission to the university was controversial, with the professorial board refusing to admit him as he had not matriculated with a mathematics subject—however this refusal was overridden by the chancellor, John Morris, who was then accused of excessive intervention.^[2] After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts with Honours in 1954, Koch joined the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) as a cadet journalist. He left Hobart to travel in south Asia and Europe, and ended up in London where he worked for several years. He returned to Australia to avoid national service in the British Army.^[3]

Career

While working in London as a waiter and a teacher, Koch began working on his first novel, The Boys in the Island, which he left with his agent when he returned to Australia.^[4]

Koch's first published works were several poems published in The Bulletin and the literary journal Southerly.^[1] While back at the ABC as a radio producer, The Boys in the Island was published in the UK. The positive reviews encouraged Koch to eventually take up writing full-time in 1972.^[5] In the early 1960s, Koch was awarded a writing fellowship to Stanford University, where he taught literature and was associated with Ken Kesey (author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest).^[4]

Koch's brother, Philip Koch, reporting for ABC-TV in April 1967 towards the end of the Sukarno era

His novel The Year of Living Dangerously, set in Jakarta during the fall of the Sukarno regime, was made into a film directed by Peter Weir and starring Sigourney Weaver, Mel Gibson and Linda Hunt. The book was loosely inspired by his brother's (Philip Koch) experience as an Australian journalist in Indonesia during that period. Koch himself had worked for two months in Jakarta in 1968 as an adviser to UNESCO.^[6]

Death

Koch died at his home in Hobart on 23 September 2013, aged 81. He had been diagnosed with cancer twelve months earlier.^[3][7]

Personal life

Koch married his first wife, Irene Vilnois, in 1959. Their son, Gareth Koch (born 1962), is a classical guitarist. He married his second wife, Robin Whyte-Butler, in the late 1990s, and she lived with him in Sydney and Tasmania,^[4][8] and was with him when he died in 2013.^[3]

Awards and honours

Year	Work	Award	Category	Result	Ref.
1978	The Year of Living Dangerously	The Age Book of the Year Awards	Book of the Year	Won	[9]
			Imaginative Writing (Fiction)	Won	[9]
1979		National Book Council Award for Australian Literature	—	Won	[10]
1985	The Doubleman	Miles Franklin Award		Won	[11]
1996	Highways to a War	Miles Franklin Award	—	Won	[12]
1999	Out of Ireland	Colin Roderick Award	—	Won	[13]
2000		Victorian Premier's Literary Awards	Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction	Won	[14]
2008	The Memory Room	Miles Franklin Award	—	Longlisted	[15]
		Nib Literary Award	—	Won	[16]
2009		International Dublin Literary Award	—	Longlisted	[17]
2013	Lost Voices	ALS Gold Medal		Shortlisted	[18]
		Prime Minister's Literary Awards	Fiction	Shortlisted	[19]
		Queensland Literary Awards	Fiction	Shortlisted	[20]

Published works

• The Boys in the Island (1958, revised ed, Angus & Robertson, 1974)
• Across the Sea Wall (Heinemann, 1965)
• The Year of Living Dangerously (Nelson, 1978)
• The Doubleman (Chatto and Windus, 1985)
• Crossing the Gap: a novelist's essays (Hogarth Press, 1993)
• Highways to a War (Heinemann, 1995)
• Out of Ireland (Doubleday, 1999)
• The Many-Coloured Land: A Return to Ireland (Picador, 2002)
• The Memory Room (2007)
• Lost Voices (2012)

Further reading

• Noel Henricksen, Island and Otherland: Christopher Koch and His Books (Educare, 2003).