| Australian author Peter Carey who has been tipped | | | | therefore you are writing something of importance, |
| to become the first to win the Man Booker Prize | | | | of interest or entertainment or education or ability. |
| three times says only dumb people would put | | | | Its absolute crap," Courtenay said. Courtenay has |
| cookery books and Dan Brown novels at the top of | | | | never accepted that Carey knows more about |
| the most-read charts. "We are getting dumber every | | | | literary excellence than him. Peter Carey has won the |
| day. We are really, literally, forgetting how to read. | | | | Man Booker Prize twice for Oscar and Lucinda (1988) |
| We have yet to grasp the fact that consuming | | | | and True History of the Kelly Gang (2001) .His latest |
| cultural junk is completely destructive of democracy," | | | | novel Parrot and Olivier in America is being touted to |
| said the 67 years old author of 11 books who lives in | | | | be a top contender for 2010 Man Booker Prize, but |
| New York during a speech to close the 2010 Sydney | | | | the long list is still unknown. Only Carey and JM |
| Writer's Festival. But fellow Australian Bryce | | | | Coetzee of South Africa have won the Booker Prize |
| Courtenay who is more commercially successful and | | | | twice. Nigerian writer Ben Okri remains the youngest |
| popular than Carey disagreed. "There is no such thing | | | | author to win the Man Booker Prize at 32 for his |
| as a wonderful book that gets lost. It just doesn't | | | | metaphysical novel The Famished Road in 1991. JG |
| happen. But what is getting lost is a lot of very, very | | | | Farrell won the 2010 Lost Man Booker Prize with his |
| ordinary books that have literary pretensions. And | | | | novel Troubles. This special Booker is for books |
| they're just very ordinary books. There's the | | | | published in 1970 but were not considered, because |
| assumption that just because you're a literary writer | | | | the prize stopped to be awarded retrospectively. |