Peter Carey won his first Booker Prize for fiction in 1988 with Oscar and Lucinda, and has just scored a second one in 2001 for True History of the Kelly Gang. This makes him one of the half dozen foremost figures in English language writing today.
The first was filmed with Cate Blanchett and Ralph Fiennes.
Carey was born in Bacchus Marsh, a small country town north-west of Melbourne, in 1943. His father was a car dealer. This figured in Illywhacker and The Tax Inspector.