Apr 7, 2025
If you spend your whole life waiting for the storm, you'll never enjoy the sunshine. —Morris West
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If you spend your whole life waiting for the storm, you'll never enjoy the sunshine. —Morris West
Si pasas toda tu vida esperando la tormenta, nunca disfrutarás del sol.
If prayer fails I am in a greater darkness yet, not knowing whether I have presumed too much or believed too little.
Morris West, The Devil’s Advocate
If you spend your whole life waiting for the storm, you'll never enjoy the sunshine...
Morris West
Morris West, (1916 –1999), AO, remains Australia’s most successful internationally selling author. Six of his works have been adapted to the screen. including The Devil’s Advocate.
His portrait has been acquired for the State Library of NSW collection. Painted by his friend, Judy Cassab in 1985, this work depicts West five years after his arrival back in Sydney. It was the same year that he was awarded an Order of Australia for services to literature. Seated at his desk with books open and placed around him, we can see a successful and prolific writer with over 30 books, plays and films to his name.
This portrait was used for the cover of his autobiographical work A View from the Ridge, published by Harper Collins in 1996. It is particularly poignant as West died at his desk in 1999. West was working on the draft of his novel, The Last Confession, when he passed away at his desk on 9 October 1999. The novel was published posthumously in 2000.
The State Library holds over 300 editions of West’s works, including many that have been translated into other languages.
The portrait has been donated by Morris West’s family and the acquisition coincides with the re-publication of West’s book titles in August 2017.
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Elise Edmonds, Senior Curator, Research and Discovery, State Library of New South Wales, 2017
ML1498
- Johnny Akimoto.
Morris West: “Manchado de sangre”
Morris West quote