Everything about Peter Carey Novelist totally explained
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
Best of the Booker Prize
, the winner of which is currently being
voted on online by members of the public. 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's the executive director of the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program at
Hunter College, part of the
City University of New York.
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 By 1968, he'd written a number of unpublished manuscripts, including novels entitled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, a theater director, and his son, to teach creative writing at New York University (NYU).
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'd asked for the meeting to be postponed, and indeed the meeting was rescheduled by the Palace.
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:
| The Booker Prize |
Illywhacker, shortlisted in 1985; Oscar and Lucinda, 1988; True History of the Kelly Gang, 2001;, longlisted in 2006. Peter Carey and J M Coetzee are the only authors to have won the Booker Prize twice. |
| The Miles Franklin Award |
Bliss, 1981; Oscar and Lucinda, 1989; Jack Maggs, 1998; True History of the Kelly Gang, shortlisted in 2001;, shortlisted in 2007 |
| The Age Book of the Year Award |
Illywhacker, 1985; The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith, 1994; Jack Maggs, 1997 |
| The Commonwealth Writers Prize |
Jack Maggs, 1998; True History of the Kelly Gang, 2001 |
| New South Wales Premier's Literary Award |
War Crimes, 1980; Bliss, 1982 |
| NBC Banjo Award |
Bliss, 1982; Illywhacker, 1985; Oscar and Lucinda, 1989 |
| FAW Barbara Ramsden Award |
Illywhacker, 1985 |
| Vance Palmer Prize for fiction |
Illywhacker, 1986 |
| Townsville Foundation for Australian Literary Studies Award |
Oscar and Lucinda, 1988 |
| South Australia Festival Award |
Oscar and Lucinda, 1990 |
| Ditmar Award for Best Australian Science Fiction Novel |
Illywhacker, 1986 |
Bibliography
Novels
Children's books
The Big Bazoohley (1995)
Short 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.
Short 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)Further Information
Get more info on 'Peter Carey Novelist'.
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