Peter Carey Biography

Australian writer Peter Carey won the Booker Prize twice, for Oscar and Lucinda (1988) and for True History of the Kelly Gang (2001). A one-time chemistry and zoology student, Carey dropped out of college and went into the advertising business. While writing ad copy, he began writing stories and novels in the early 1960s. After a decade of writing and living abroad, his stories began getting published in the mid-1970s. His first novel, Bliss, was published in 1981. Settled in Sydney and working in his own ad agency, Carey kept writing short stories and novels. His 1988 novel Oscar and Lucinda won the Booker Prize and made him famous. Since 1990, he’s lived in New York, writing short stories and novels and non-fiction books, and winning just about every literary award Australia has to offer. His True History of the Kelly Gang not only won the Booker Prize, it sold millions of copies — his straightforward, often profane prose appeals to the public as well as to critics. His other novels include The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith (1994), The Chemistry of Tears (2012), Theft: A Love Story (2006) and Amnesia (2014).