Peter Carey

Peter Carey – Life, Career, and Famous Quotes

Delve into the life and work of Australian novelist Peter Carey — two-time Booker Prize winner, master of historical reinvention and postcolonial narrative. Discover his biography, major works, themes, and notable quotes.

Introduction

Peter Philip Carey AO (born 7 May 1943) is one of Australia’s most celebrated novelists. Booker Prize twice—first for Oscar and Lucinda (1988) and then for True History of the Kelly Gang (2001).

Carey’s novels traverse history, myth, identity, and the colonial legacy of Australia. His mastery of voice, imaginative re-visioning of real events or characters, and engagement with national consciousness have made him a central figure in global contemporary literature.

Early Life and Family

Peter Carey was born in Bacchus Marsh, Victoria, Australia, on 7 May 1943.

He attended the local state school until about age eleven, then became a boarding student at Geelong Grammar School (from roughly 1954 to 1960).

After finishing school, Carey enrolled in Monash University to study science (notably chemistry or zoology) but left after a year, having failed his first-year exams.

Youth and Development as Writer

Following his departure from university, Carey worked in advertising in Melbourne.

His early collections include The Fat Man in History and War Crimes, which show a more surreal, often dark or grotesque sensibility.

In 1980, Carey established his own advertising agency in Sydney, but continued to write in parallel.

Career and Achievements

Major Novels & Themes

Many of Carey’s best-known novels involve historical reimagining, often turning to Australia’s colonial past, or reinterpreting canonical texts. He blends myth and fact, and shows how national identity is always in flux.

Some key works:

• Bliss (1981) — Carey’s early novel, mixing satire, surrealism, and social critique.

• Illywhacker (1985) — a novel lauded as one of his first major breakthroughs.

• Oscar and Lucinda (1988) — a delicate Victorian-era novel, combining chance, faith, and risk, for which he won the Booker Prize.

• The Tax Inspector (1991), The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith (1994), Jack Maggs (1997) — the latter reworking Dickens’ Great Expectations from another perspective.

• True History of the Kelly Gang (2000) — a fictional first-person memoir of Ned Kelly, Australia’s famous outlaw, retelling the legend in the outlaw’s own voice. Carey won his second Booker Prize for this work.

• My Life as a Fake (2003), Theft: A Love Story (2006) — Theft won the Vance Palmer Prize and other awards.

• Later novels include Amnesia and A Long Way from Home, in which Carey situates contemporary or near-contemporary Australian life in global frames.

Carey’s work often engages with:

• National identity, colonial legacy, and myth — How Australia remembers itself, and how history is narrated.

• Multiplicity of voice & narrative instability — He often uses ambiguous or unreliable narrators to destabilize fixed interpretations.

• Interplay of fact and fiction — Many of his novels tread the line between historical documentation and imaginative invention.

• The colonial “center” vs periphery — London, New York, and old empires loom in his works as power centers to which Australia is relative.

Recognition & Roles

Carey is one of only five authors to win the Booker Prize twice. Miles Franklin Award multiple times (Australia’s premier literary prize).

He holds dual Australian–USA citizenship since 2002. Hunter College (City University of New York).

In recognition of his service to literature, he was made Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 2012. Royal Society of Literature and the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Historical & Literary Context

Carey’s career spans a period when Australian literature was increasingly asserting itself beyond colonial definitions. Writers in the late 20th century confronted the legacies of Indigenous dispossession, settler narratives, national identity, and the tension between locality and global influence.

Carey, in his imaginative work, embodies this: he often turns back to colonial or mythic figures (such as Ned Kelly) and reframes them, giving voice to marginalized or neglected perspectives. His work also dialogues with canonical British literature (e.g. Jack Maggs reworks Dickens).

Furthermore, the late 20th and early 21st centuries saw greater globalization, and Carey’s move to New York and engagement with transnational literary space can be seen as part of a broader shift in national literatures balancing intimacy and global relevance.

Legacy and Influence

Peter Carey’s influence is deep and varied:

• Master of historical re-visioning. His inventive reimaginings show how history can be made alive through imaginative reconstruction.

• Voice for Australian literature globally. He has brought Australian narrative into international literary conversation.

• Experimenter with narrative form. His willingness to subvert linear narratives, mix genres, and destabilize voices inspires writers who wish to take formal risks.

• Mentor and educator. Through his teaching and directing the MFA program in New York, he has influenced younger writers internationally.

• A living Australian literary icon. He continues to publish, provoke, and stir discourse around identity, politics, and storytelling.

Personality, Approach & Philosophy

Carey projects a certain intellectual ambition, skepticism toward fixed authority, and belief in imagination’s power. In public statements and interviews:

• He has expressed strong republican sentiments in Australia, critiquing vestiges of colonial deference (e.g. a controversy over declining a meeting with the Queen).

• He emphasizes that a novelist must sometimes “drag things out of the dark,” acknowledging the mysterious and unconscious forces of writing.

• He has referred to the distance between the writer and the finished novel, how what emerges is in some sense foreign to the self.

• Carey has voiced wariness about writers trying to control adaptations of their books, acknowledging that once rights are given, the work becomes something else.

He balances detachment and passion — caring about national narratives, but refusing simplistic patriotism. His curiosity about voice, history, and the “other side of things” guides his aesthetic.

Famous Quotes by Peter Carey

Here are a few notable quotes reflecting his thoughts on writing, identity, and history:

“Writing a novel takes you so far beyond yourself … where you get to at the end is so far removed from who you are that it is like someone else wrote it.” “I thought [Queen Elizabeth II] was a relic.” (on hesitating to meet the Queen after winning a literary prize) “The minute you give the rights to somebody else, it's theirs.” (on literary adaptation) “Whenever there's a referendum, I think of that.” (on Australian identity, in the context of Jack Maggs)

These expressions show his self-awareness, his skepticism of authority, and his sense of distance between the author and the story.

Lessons from Peter Carey

From Carey’s life and work, several insights emerge:

1. Imagination can redraw history. One may reclaim, reframe, and humanize canonical or mythic figures through fiction.

2. Voice is unstable. Narrative authority is not monolithic; ambiguity, multiplicity, and contrapuntal voices enrich meaning.

3. National identity is dynamic. To interrogate and revisit collective memory is part of cultural growth.

4. Writing is both labor and mystery. The novelist must persist, show up, and yet allow space for surprises.

5. Control is partial. Once a work leaves the author (through adaptation, rights sale), it enters a new life beyond control.

6. Crossing borders matter. His move to New York and global engagement show that local voices can enrich world literature, not suffer by leaving geography.

Conclusion

Peter Carey remains a towering and restless figure in contemporary literature. His novels, which fuse historical sweep with imaginative boldness, challenge how we see Australia, history, and narrative itself. As he continues to publish and reflect, his work not only enriches Australian letters but offers a blueprint for writers who dare to revisit myths, stretch voice, and confront memory.

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