Peter Carey (novelist)

Infobox Writer
name = Peter Philip Carey
caption =
pseudonym =
birthdate = birth date and age|1943|5|7|df=y
birthplace = Bacchus Marsh, Victoria, Australia
deathdate =
deathplace =
occupation = Novelist, Short story writer, Children book writer
nationality = AUS
period = 1974-present
genre =
subject =
movement =
notableworks = True History of the Kelly Gang
awards = "'Man Booker Prize
1988 "Oscar and Lucinda"
2001 "True History of the Kelly Gang"

Peter Philip Carey (born 7 May 1943) is an Australian novelist and short story writer. He is one of only two writers, the other being J. M. Coetzee, to have won the Booker Prize twice. In May 2008 he was also nominated for the [http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news/vote Best of the Booker Prize] . He has also won the Miles Franklin Award three times.

He collaborated on the screenplay of the film "Until the End of the World". And currently, he is the executive director of the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program at Hunter College, part of the City University of New York. [ [http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/creativewriting/ Creative Writing MFA Home ] ]

Early life and career

Peter Carey was born in Bacchus Marsh, Victoria, in 1943. His parents ran a General Motors dealership, Carey Motors. He attended Bacchus Marsh State School from 1948 to 1953, then boarded at Geelong Grammar School between 1954 and 1960 before graduating. In 1961, Carey enrolled in a science degree program at Monash University in Melbourne, majoring in Chemistry and Zoology, but cut short his study due to a car accident and a lack of interest in his studies.

In 1962, he began to work in advertising. He worked at various Melbourne advertising agencies between 1962 and 1967, and worked on campaigns for Volkswagen and Lindeman's Winery, among many others. It was his advertising work that brought him into contact with the writers Barry Oakley and Morris Lurie, who introduced him to recent European and American fiction. Carey married his first wife, Leigh Weetman in 1964.

During this time, he read widely, particularly the works of James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Franz Kafka and William Faulkner, and began his own writing in 1964. By 1968, he had written a number of unpublished manuscripts, including novels entitled "Contacts", "The Futility Machine" and "Wog", as well as a short story collection. Several of these manuscripts were accepted by a publisher, but later rejected.

In the late 1960s, he travelled through Europe and parts of the Middle East, ending up in London in 1968, where he worked in advertising once again. Returning to Australia in 1970, he continued to work in advertising in Melbourne and Sydney.

Middle career

While working in advertising, Carey wrote and published a number of short stories, in magazines and newspapers such as Meanjin and Nation Review. Most of these were published in "The Fat Man In History". In 1974, he divorced Leigh Weetman and moved to Balmain in Sydney to work for Grey's Advertising Agency.

In 1976, Carey moved to Queensland and joined an 'alternative community' named Starlight in Yandina, north of Brisbane. He would write for three weeks, then spend the fourth week working in Sydney. It was during this time that he wrote most of the stories collected in "War Crimes", as well as "Bliss", his first published novel.

Carey started his own advertising agency in 1980, the Sydney-based McSpedden Carey Advertising Consultants, in partnership with Bani McSpedden. In 1981, he moved to Bellingen in northern New South Wales. He married theatre director Alison Summers in 1985, and some time around 1990 sold his share of McSpedden Carey and moved to New York, during the writing of "The Tax Inspector". This move drew criticism from a few, who disputed Carey's right to speak from an Australian perspective while living outside the country.

Move to New York

Carey moved to New York in 1990/1991 with his wife, Alison Summers, and his son, to teach creative writing at New York University (NYU). [http://www.bookbrowse.com/biographies/index.cfm?author_number=556 Bookbrowse Biography] ] Carey and Summers have since divorced and Carey now lives with the British-born publisher Frances Coady.

In 1998, he provoked further controversy by declining an invitation to meet Queen Elizabeth II after winning the Commonwealth Writers Prize for "Jack Maggs", many believing his response to be motivated by his Australian Republican beliefs, though he cited family and personal reasons at the time. Carey later said he had asked for the meeting to be postponed, and indeed the meeting was rescheduled by the Palace.In an article titled "Carey on Dickens, the Queen and Ned Kelly", Alan Atwood interviewed Carey for The Sydney Morning Herald, 05.06.1998 p13. Carey explains that the meeting with the Queen was only deferred and not cancelled as reported by a number of English newspapers.]

He has been awarded three honorary degrees and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, the Australian Academy of Humanities and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Awards

Carey has won numerous literary awards, including:

Bibliography

Novels

* "Bliss" (1981)
* "Illywhacker" (1985)
* "Oscar and Lucinda" (1988)
* "The Tax Inspector" (1991)
* "The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith" (1994)
* "Jack Maggs" (1997)
* "True History of the Kelly Gang" (2000)
* "My Life as a Fake" (2003)
* "" (2006)
*"His Illegal Self" (2008)

Children's books

* "The Big Bazoohley" (1995)

hort story collections

* "The Fat Man in History" (1974)
* "War Crimes" (1979)
* "Exotic Pleasures" (1990)
* "Collected Stories" (1994) - collects all the works from "The Fat Man in History" and "War Crimes", as well as three previously uncollected works.

hort stories

* "Peeling"
* "American Dreams"
* "Do You Love Me?"
* "Crabs"
* "Room No. 5 (Escribo)"
* "Report on the Shadow Industry"
* "The Chance"
* "Exotic Pleasures"
* "Nature of Blue"
* "The Last Days of a Famous Mime"

Non fiction

*"A Letter to Our Son" (1994)
*"30 Days in Sydney: A Wildly Distorted Account" (2001)
*"Letter From New York" (2001)
*"Wrong about Japan" (2005)

Notes

External links

* [http://www.petercareybooks.com Official Website]
* [http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/creativewriting MFA Creative Writing] Peter Carey Director
* [http://www.randomhouse.com.au/Authors/Default.aspx?Page=Author&ID=Carey,%20Peter Peter Carey at Random House Australia]
* [http://nla.gov.au/nla.ms-ms7566 Guide to the papers of Peter Carey - held by the National Library of Australia]
* [http://wwwehlt.flinders.edu.au/english/PeterCarey/PeterCarey.html Peter Carey] Website maintained by Rebecca J. Vaughan, hosted by Flinders University
* [http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=738 The Literary Encyclopedia: Carey, Peter]
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* [http://www.metacritic.com/books/authors/careypeter/theft Theft Reviews] at Metacritic
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* [http://cloudstreetbookclub.blogspot.com/2006/11/hours-of-my-life-peter-carey-stole-from.html Theft Blog Review] at [http://cloudstreetbookclub.blogspot.com/index.html Cloudstreet Book Club]
* [http://www.themonthly.com.au/tm/node/942 Video of Peter Carey discussing His Illegal Self at Adelaide Writers' Week] on [http://www.slowtv.com.au SlowTV]
* [http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/bw/bw020523peter_carey/# Peter Carey on Bookworm radio]

Persondata
NAME= Carey, Peter Philip
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION= Australian novelist, short story writer, and children's literature writer
DATE OF BIRTH= 7 May 1943
PLACE OF BIRTH= Bacchus Marsh, Victoria, Australia
DATE OF DEATH=
PLACE OF DEATH=