Bryce Courtenay
Bryce Courtenay was born in South Africa and educated in Johannesburg and the UK. He arrived in Australia in 1958 and became an Australian citizen the following year. Bryce entered the advertising industry and was the Creative Director of McCann Erickson, J. Walter Thompson and George Patterson Advertising. With a career spanning 34 years Bryce received many awards both in Australia and overseas.
Bryce Courtenay is rated as one of the top five speakers in Australia. He has lectured around the world, including on the power of the individual to achieve any end purpose. However, he is best known as one of Australia’s top selling novelists. The author of 20 books, his novels are primarily set in Australia, his adopted country, or South Africa, the country of his birth. Bryce is now residing in Canberra.
His first novel, The Power of One, was published in 1989 and quickly became one of Australia’s best-selling books by any living author. It received acclaim all over the world and sold approximately seven million copies, has been published in 18 languages, made into a movie and was awarded the Best New Novel in the 1990 British Book Awards.
Bryce Courtenay is the bestselling author of Tandia; April Fool’s Day; The Potato Factory; Tommo & Hawk; The Family Frying Pan; A Recipe for Dreaming; The Night Country; Jessica; Solomon’s Song; Smoky Joe’s Café; Four Fires; Matthew Flinders’ Cat; Brother Fish; Whitethorn; Sylvia; The Persimmon Tree; Fishing for Stars; The Story of Danny Dunn and the latest, Fortune Cookie.
In recognition of service to advertising and marketing to the community, and as an author, Bryce was awarded The Order of Australia (AM) in 1995. In 2005 Bryce was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters (honoris causa) from the University of Newcastle. Bryce was Australia Post’s Literary Legend in 2010 and was honoured on an Australian postage stamp.