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Illywhacker - Peter Carey

$12.95

Author - Peter Carey
Printed in 2003 (originally published 1985) by Faber & Faber, UK
Softcover, 569 Pages
Size - 20cm * 13cm

Illywhacker is a dazzling comic narrative, from the lips of the 139-year-old Herbert Badgery, the `illywhacker' or confidence trickster of the title. Overflowing with magic, jokes and inventions, peopled with aviators, car salesmen, Chinamen and impresarios, Peter Carey's novel is a contemporary classic.

Peter Carey was born in Bacchus Marsh in Victoria, Australia, in 1943. He studied Science at Monash University, and wrote advertising copy to support himself during the early part of his literary career. Australian identity and historical context play a part in several of his literary works.

`Carey is one of the great story-tellers of our time, the kind who makes you take the phone off the hook, forget the television and ignore the doorbell.' - Evening Standard

`Illywhacker is a tour de force, both funny and moving, the work of an original at full stretch.' - Financial Times

`It is impossible to convey in a review the cumulative brilliance and accelerating hilarity of the prose.' - London Review of Books