Peter Carey

Peter Carey was born in Australia in 1943. Carey started his career at an advertising agency where he began to receive his literary education, meeting Faulkner, Joyce, Kerouac and other writers he had previously been unaware of. Carey was only nineteen.

For the next thirteen years Carey wrote fiction at night and weekends, working in many advertising agencies in Melbourne, London, and Sydney. After four novels had been written and rejected, his short story collection, "The Fat Man in History," was published in 1974. This slim book made Carey an overnight success.

Carey continued with "War Crimes," "Bliss," "Illywhacker," and "Oscar and Lucinda." "Illywhacker" was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. "Oscar and Lucinda" won it. In 1990 Carey moved to New York where he completed "The Tax Inspector" while teaching classes at NYU one night a week. Later he would have similar jobs at Princeton, The New School and Barnard College. During these years he wrote "The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith," "Jack Maggs," and "True History of the Kelly Gang" for which he won his second Booker Prize. In 2003 Carey joined Hunter College as the Director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing. In the years since he has written "My Life as a Fake," "Theft," "His Illegal Self" and "Parrot & Olivier in America."

Carey’s first Booker-winning novel, "Oscar and Lucinda," was later adapted into a movie starring Ralph Fiennes and Cate Blanchett and his early novel, "Bliss," recently became an opera. His novel, "Parrot & Olivier in America," was shortlisted for another Booker Prize and then became a finalist for a National Book Award. His most recent novel is "The Chemistry of Tears."