Regarding His Illegal Self
Katy Guest reviewed the new paperback edition in "The Independent": "A consumate plotter, the multi-Booker-winner Peter Carey packs a lot of distance and a great deal of stuff into this teeming novel about a boy's childhood."
Matthew Condon discusses the novel with Carey at the Adelaide Writers' Week on Slow TV - Part 1 and Part 2.
Parrot and Olivier in America
Carey's next novel, Parrot and Olivier in America, will be published in Australia by Penguin in November, ahead of its international release in 2010. There isn't much news out about it but the Penguin Books news letter has some details (see the April 29, 2009 entry).
Australia's Review of Copyright and Territorial Publishing Rights
In January this year Carey published an essay in "The Age" arguing against any relaxation of the current copyright and territorial publishing arrangements covering the Australian publishing industry.
You can read also Carey's submission to the government inquiry. (PDF file.)
Other
Canadian short story author Alice Munro has won the third Man Booker International Prize, for which Peter Carey was shortlisted.
In my last "Peter Carey Watch" I mentioned that the Scottish national opera company was performing an opera based on Carey's short story "Happy Story", and now "The Age" is reporting that "composer Brett Dean, who lives in Melbourne, and his librettist, Amanda Holden, who lives in London" have mostly finished a three-act opera based on Bliss.
The Australian National Portrait Gallery has made available Lewis Morley's photographic portrait of the author, dating from 1989.
Carey's laptop, upon which he composed True History of the Kelly Gang, is part of "The Independent Type: Books and Writing in Victoria" exhibition which is currently on show at the State Library of Victoria.
