Peter Carey

One of the world’s leading novelists, Peter Carey is among only five writers who have won the Booker Prize twice, first for Oscar and Lucinda in 1988 and then for True History of the Kelly Gang in 2001. Frequently cited as Australia’s next contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature, the celebrated author was the director of the Hunter College Creative Writing MFA program from 2003 to 2021.

Born in Bacchus Marsh, Victoria, Australia, in 1943, Carey attended the prestigious Geelong Grammar School and studied for a year at Monash University in Clayton, Victoria. He then worked as an advertising copywriter in Melbourne, London, and Sydney, writing fiction at night and on weekends. After his first four novels had been written and rejected, The Fat Man in History—a short story collection—was published in 1974. From 1976 Carey worked part-time in advertising, focusing primarily on his fiction. 

Carey is the author of over a dozen novels, as well as short stories, works of nonfiction, and screenplays. His books include War Crimes (1979), Bliss (1981), The Tax Inspector (1991), The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith (1994), My Life as a Fake (2003), Theft (2006), His Illegal Self (2008), and The Chemistry of Tears (2012). Illywhacker (1985) and Parrot and Olivier in America (2009) made the shortlist for the Booker Prize; the latter was also a finalist for the National Book Award. 

Carey moved to New York in 1990, where he taught at NYU. He later taught at Princeton, the New School, and Barnard College, before joining Hunter College.

Both of Carey’s Booker-winning novels were adapted into films, and he collaborated with the filmmaker Wim Wenders on the screenplay for Until the End of the World (1991). His novel Bliss was adapted into a film and an opera, and he co-wrote the lyrics and book for the rock musical Illusion.

In 2010, Carey appeared on two Australian postage stamps in a series dedicated to "Australian Legends.” The University of Oxford's Bodleian Libraries awarded Carey its highest honor, the Bodley Medal, and he was named a “2021 Great Immigrant” by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.