Booker winner Carey's view on new work

Carey has won two Booker Prizes for his novels Oscar and Lucinda, and True History of the Kelly Gang, and is acknowledged as one of the great storytellers of our time.

His new novel follows the son of two radical militants on a journey from a privileged existence in the Big Apple, to a hippie commune in Queensland's jungles.

Australian by birth and New Yorker by choice for almost 20 years, 64-year-old Peter Carey has written 10 novels.

Oscar and Lucinda won the Booker Prize in 1988 and True History of the Kelly Gang won it in 2001.

Carey revisits Australia for his new novel - His Illegal Self.

It is the story of a seven year-old American boy, an American woman and an Australian man, all outlaws, who take refuge in the Australian rain forest.

Some reviewers have found the plot implausible, but nothing suppresses Carey's storytelling gifts, his way with a sentence, his feeling for character.

As a New Yorker, Carey has written movingly of September 11 - giving a highly personal record of the day.

He doesn't seek the role of public intellectual but can't hide his disgust with the Bush regime.

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