D. B. C. Pierre
Encyclopedia
DBC Pierre is a writer
known for his novel Vernon God Little
. The "DBC" part of his nom-de-plume
(normally so written, without punctuation) stands for "Dirty But Clean". "Pierre" was a nickname
bestowed on him by childhood friends after the cartoon
character "Dirty Pierre" from the television series "Super-6".
He was born in South Australia
in 1961, before moving to Mexico
, where Pierre was largely raised. Having since lived in Spain
, Australia
, England
and the West Indies, he now resides in the Republic of Ireland
.
Pierre was awarded the Booker Prize for fiction
on 14 October 2003 for Vernon God Little, his first novel, becoming the third Australian-born author to be so honoured. Upon winning the Whitbread First Novel Award in 2004 he became the first writer ever to receive a Booker and a Whitbread for the same book. The book also won the Bollinger Wodehouse Everyman Prize for comic literature at the Hay Festival
in 2003, and earned the author a James Joyce Award
from the Literary and Historical Society of University College Dublin
.
winery homestead in South Australia, where his father was lecturing in genetics
at the University of Adelaide
, by the age of 2 Pierre had already spent time in the United States, the South Pacific and Great Britain. He was then raised from early childhood into his 20s in a lavish mansion in Mexico City
's landmark modernist community of Jardines del Pedregal
, and attended Edron Academy
. Pierre wrote of his upbringing in the British magazine Quintessentially in December 2009:
Pierre was taken to revisit this home by Alan Yentob
for the BBC
television series Imagine
in 2004. He reflected that the seeds of a later troubled and often outrageous youth were planted there, citing constant attendance by servants, and a social system where money could buy anything including the law. Pierre has told the press that of the gang of 7 youths that formed his fast-living teenage milieu, only he and one other survive today. In the Yentob documentary, a childhood friend and neighbour of Pierre's, the financier and industrialist Antonio Mayer, stated that "we were bad - but we weren't rotten".
Owing to his father's work around the globe Pierre was part of the original jetset, and claims that constant travel took its toll on his academic life, though he was always able to draw and paint, and was published as a cartoonist while still in his early teens. He went on to practice photography
, graphic design
and filmmaking
, working freelance for clients around the world. His varied cultural background added more reasons to travel - his mother was born in the shadow of Durham
castle in North East England
, and Pierre also once attended Bow School there as a child. He recalls in a Guardian
article of 1 September 2004, that he would later return to Durham most years, usually around the 2nd week in July, to see the Big Meeting. Also known as the Durham Miners Gala, the event was at one time the largest gathering of mineworkers outside the Soviet Union. He found the meeting of working folk moving and inspiring, and enjoyed contact with more "realistic" family roots than those suggested by his opulent existence in Mexico City. His first setback was when, aged seven, he fell ill with hepatitis and had to spend a year in bed. After he recovered, his parents were faced with the choice of keeping him a year behind in school, or letting him stay in his class and just catch up. They chose the latter. Pierre sees this as his "all the trouble began when ... " moment, as it meant him falling out with his peers.
His father, once decorated as a Lancaster Bomber pilot in World War 2, by then a scientific partner to Nobel Peace Prize
winner Norman E. Borlaug, fell ill when Pierre was sixteen, and died three years later. During that time Pierre was left alone with the family mansion and its servants and cars. He later said that in trying to deal with his father's slipping away from him he started a party at the house which "Ran for more than a decade in some form or other." He also spent long periods in New York City and on the Mediterranean, until President
José López Portillo
issued a decree nationalising Mexico's banking system and greatly devaluing its currency overnight. Pierre has called the period of his father's illness and death, and the financial collapse which cost his family much of its fortune, "the beginning of my problems".
on the United States-Mexican border in the middle of the night when he was stopped trying to import a 6-litre sports car. He intended to drive through the Sonora Desert to Mexico City, but Mexico at the time had a protectionist auto industry, making foreign vehicle imports illegal to all but tourists. Pierre succeeded in crossing with the car but found his papers cancelled by the time he reached Mexico City some 18 hours later. The border crossing at Reynosa is described and celebrated in Pierre's novel Vernon God Little
, as is the journey by road from the border.
Pierre asserts that of the following years, nine were spent in a drug
-induced haze, culminating with a stay in Australia where he finally collapsed. He described this period of his life in an interview given on the Australian television show Enough Rope
with Andrew Denton
in 2006:
During his 20s he had been involved in illegal and unprofitable schemes, including one aimed at mounting a film production to explore the fall of the Aztec Empire and follow trails to the remains of Aztec
Emperor Moctezuma
, and possibly to his lost treasure, the whereabouts of which remains one of Mexico's great mysteries. He has also confessed to once selling the apartment of an American neighbour in Spain and using much of the proceeds ($34,000) to finance his drug habit, as well as taking possession of a police car in Mexico and using it as his own for many months. For most of the 1990s, he lived as a recluse; in his own words, "repolarising and deconstructing" himself while listening to Russian and German orchestral music. After years of recovery and patchy employment he wrote his first novel on the floor of a box-room in Balham
, south London, finally agreeing a publication deal with Faber & Faber on September 11, 2001, 45 minutes before the tragic attacks on New York. In the following weeks he relocated to a remote mountainside in County Leitrim
, Ireland, where he began work on a second novel. The Booker Prize comes with a monetary award of GBP
50,000. Upon being notified of his victory, Pierre said that the money would go part way toward paying off the debts incurred in his 20s, when psychological issues and drug abuse were driving forces.
documentary he revisits the Aztecs' epic tale of decline and conquest. The Last Aztec, part historical film and part road movie, was aired in 2006 and follows Pierre as he traces the advance of the Spanish conquistadors toward the Aztec capital. It also picks up the threads he had intended to pursue in his ill-fated production of years earlier, centring on the wizards and witches of an Otomi
culture in a remote valley in the Sierra Madre
mountains of central Mexico.
In 2007 his award-winning first novel, Vernon God Little
, was adapted by Tanya Ronder for the London stage. It was directed by Rufus Norris
at the Young Vic from 27 April – 9 June. To date the work has been translated in more than 40 countries worldwide and produced as a play by at least four theatre companies. The book has also been optioned for film, but no production has yet taken place.
In 2009, he donated the short story "Suddenly Dr Cox" to Oxfam's Ox-Tales
project, four collections of UK stories written by 38 authors. Pierre's story was published in the Air collection. He is also a contributor to the 2009 rock biography on The Triffids
Vagabond Holes: David McComb and the Triffids, edited by Australian academics Niall Lucy
and Chris Coughran.
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
known for his novel Vernon God Little
Vernon God Little
Vernon God Little is a novel by DBC Pierre. It was his debut novel and won the Booker Prize in 2003.-Plot introduction:The title character is a fifteen-year-old boy who lives in a small town in the U.S. state of Texas...
. The "DBC" part of his nom-de-plume
Pen name
A pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author. A pen name may be used to make the author's name more distinctive, to disguise his or her gender, to distance an author from some or all of his or her works, to protect the author from retribution for his or her...
(normally so written, without punctuation) stands for "Dirty But Clean". "Pierre" was a nickname
Nickname
A nickname is "a usually familiar or humorous but sometimes pointed or cruel name given to a person or place, as a supposedly appropriate replacement for or addition to the proper name.", or a name similar in origin and pronunciation from the original name....
bestowed on him by childhood friends after the cartoon
Cartoon
A cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers to a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, or humor, or to the artistic style of such works...
character "Dirty Pierre" from the television series "Super-6".
He was born in South Australia
South Australia
South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...
in 1961, before moving to Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, where Pierre was largely raised. Having since lived in Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
and the West Indies, he now resides in the Republic of Ireland
Republic of Ireland
Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...
.
Pierre was awarded the Booker Prize for fiction
Man Booker Prize
The Man Booker Prize for Fiction is a literary prize awarded each year for the best original full-length novel, written in the English language, by a citizen of the Commonwealth of Nations, Ireland, or Zimbabwe. The winner of the Man Booker Prize is generally assured of international renown and...
on 14 October 2003 for Vernon God Little, his first novel, becoming the third Australian-born author to be so honoured. Upon winning the Whitbread First Novel Award in 2004 he became the first writer ever to receive a Booker and a Whitbread for the same book. The book also won the Bollinger Wodehouse Everyman Prize for comic literature at the Hay Festival
Hay Festival
The Hay Festival of Literature & Arts is an annual literature festival held in Hay-on-Wye, Powys, Wales for ten days from May to June. Devised by Norman and Peter Florence in 1988, the festival was described by Bill Clinton in 2001 as "The Woodstock of the mind"...
in 2003, and earned the author a James Joyce Award
James Joyce Award
The James Joyce Award is an award given by the Literary and Historical Society of University College Dublin for those who have achieved outstanding success in their given field...
from the Literary and Historical Society of University College Dublin
University College Dublin
University College Dublin ) - formally known as University College Dublin - National University of Ireland, Dublin is the Republic of Ireland's largest, and Ireland's second largest, university, with over 1,300 faculty and 17,000 students...
.
Early life
Born into an old ReynellaOld Reynella, South Australia
Old Reynella is a metropolitan suburb of Adelaide, South Australia. It is located 20 km south of the Central Business District of Adelaide in the north of the City of Onkaparinga....
winery homestead in South Australia, where his father was lecturing in genetics
Genetics
Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....
at the University of Adelaide
University of Adelaide
The University of Adelaide is a public university located in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third oldest university in Australia...
, by the age of 2 Pierre had already spent time in the United States, the South Pacific and Great Britain. He was then raised from early childhood into his 20s in a lavish mansion in Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
's landmark modernist community of Jardines del Pedregal
Jardines del Pedregal
Jardines del Pedregal or simply El Pedregal is an upscale residential colonia in southern Mexico City. Its borders are San Jerónimo Avenue and Ciudad Universitaria at the north, Insurgentes Avenue at the east and Periférico at south and west. Its were the major real estate project undertaken by...
, and attended Edron Academy
Edron Academy
The Edron Academy A.C. is a non-profit school in Mexico. It was founded in 1963 by Edward Foulkes, a Welshman who worked in Mexico in the publishing business and as a teacher for the British Council, and by Ronald Stech, a Canadian who became the school's first administrator...
. Pierre wrote of his upbringing in the British magazine Quintessentially in December 2009:
Pierre was taken to revisit this home by Alan Yentob
Alan Yentob
Alan Yentob is a British television executive and presenter who has worked throughout his career at the BBC.-Early life:...
for the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
television series Imagine
Imagine (TV series)
Imagine is a wide ranging arts series first broadcast on BBC One in 2003, hosted and executive produced by Alan Yentob. Each series usually consists of 4 to 7 episodes, each on a different topic...
in 2004. He reflected that the seeds of a later troubled and often outrageous youth were planted there, citing constant attendance by servants, and a social system where money could buy anything including the law. Pierre has told the press that of the gang of 7 youths that formed his fast-living teenage milieu, only he and one other survive today. In the Yentob documentary, a childhood friend and neighbour of Pierre's, the financier and industrialist Antonio Mayer, stated that "we were bad - but we weren't rotten".
Owing to his father's work around the globe Pierre was part of the original jetset, and claims that constant travel took its toll on his academic life, though he was always able to draw and paint, and was published as a cartoonist while still in his early teens. He went on to practice photography
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
, graphic design
Graphic design
Graphic design is a creative process – most often involving a client and a designer and usually completed in conjunction with producers of form – undertaken in order to convey a specific message to a targeted audience...
and filmmaking
Filmmaking
Filmmaking is the process of making a film, from an initial story, idea, or commission, through scriptwriting, casting, shooting, directing, editing, and screening the finished product before an audience that may result in a theatrical release or television program...
, working freelance for clients around the world. His varied cultural background added more reasons to travel - his mother was born in the shadow of Durham
Durham
Durham is a city in north east England. It is within the County Durham local government district, and is the county town of the larger ceremonial county...
castle in North East England
North East England
North East England is one of the nine official regions of England. It covers Northumberland, County Durham, Tyne and Wear, and Teesside . The only cities in the region are Durham, Newcastle upon Tyne and Sunderland...
, and Pierre also once attended Bow School there as a child. He recalls in a Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
article of 1 September 2004, that he would later return to Durham most years, usually around the 2nd week in July, to see the Big Meeting. Also known as the Durham Miners Gala, the event was at one time the largest gathering of mineworkers outside the Soviet Union. He found the meeting of working folk moving and inspiring, and enjoyed contact with more "realistic" family roots than those suggested by his opulent existence in Mexico City. His first setback was when, aged seven, he fell ill with hepatitis and had to spend a year in bed. After he recovered, his parents were faced with the choice of keeping him a year behind in school, or letting him stay in his class and just catch up. They chose the latter. Pierre sees this as his "all the trouble began when ... " moment, as it meant him falling out with his peers.
His father, once decorated as a Lancaster Bomber pilot in World War 2, by then a scientific partner to Nobel Peace Prize
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.-Background:According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who...
winner Norman E. Borlaug, fell ill when Pierre was sixteen, and died three years later. During that time Pierre was left alone with the family mansion and its servants and cars. He later said that in trying to deal with his father's slipping away from him he started a party at the house which "Ran for more than a decade in some form or other." He also spent long periods in New York City and on the Mediterranean, until President
President of Mexico
The President of the United Mexican States is the head of state and government of Mexico. Under the Constitution, the president is also the Supreme Commander of the Mexican armed forces...
José López Portillo
José López Portillo
José López Portillo y Pacheco was the President of Mexico from 1976 to 1982.Born in Mexico City, López Portillo studied Law at the National Autonomous University of Mexico before beginning his political career with the Institutional Revolutionary Party in 1959.He held several positions in the...
issued a decree nationalising Mexico's banking system and greatly devaluing its currency overnight. Pierre has called the period of his father's illness and death, and the financial collapse which cost his family much of its fortune, "the beginning of my problems".
Middle years
Pierre's permanent residency in Mexico ended at ReynosaReynosa
Reynosa is a border city in the northern part of Tamaulipas, in the country of Mexico. It is located on the southern bank of the Rio Grande, directly across the border from McAllen, Texas in the United States. As of 2010, the city of Reynosa counts with a population of 607,532...
on the United States-Mexican border in the middle of the night when he was stopped trying to import a 6-litre sports car. He intended to drive through the Sonora Desert to Mexico City, but Mexico at the time had a protectionist auto industry, making foreign vehicle imports illegal to all but tourists. Pierre succeeded in crossing with the car but found his papers cancelled by the time he reached Mexico City some 18 hours later. The border crossing at Reynosa is described and celebrated in Pierre's novel Vernon God Little
Vernon God Little
Vernon God Little is a novel by DBC Pierre. It was his debut novel and won the Booker Prize in 2003.-Plot introduction:The title character is a fifteen-year-old boy who lives in a small town in the U.S. state of Texas...
, as is the journey by road from the border.
Pierre asserts that of the following years, nine were spent in a drug
Psychoactive drug
A psychoactive drug, psychopharmaceutical, or psychotropic is a chemical substance that crosses the blood–brain barrier and acts primarily upon the central nervous system where it affects brain function, resulting in changes in perception, mood, consciousness, cognition, and behavior...
-induced haze, culminating with a stay in Australia where he finally collapsed. He described this period of his life in an interview given on the Australian television show Enough Rope
Enough Rope
Enough Rope with Andrew Denton is a television interview show originally broadcast on ABC Television in Australia...
with Andrew Denton
Andrew Denton
Andrew Christopher Denton is an Australian television producer, comedian, Gold Logie-nominated television presenter and former radio host, and was the host of the ABC's weekly television interview program Enough Rope. He is known for his comedy and interviewing technique...
in 2006:
During his 20s he had been involved in illegal and unprofitable schemes, including one aimed at mounting a film production to explore the fall of the Aztec Empire and follow trails to the remains of Aztec
Aztec
The Aztec people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period referred to as the late post-classic period in Mesoamerican chronology.Aztec is the...
Emperor Moctezuma
Moctezuma II
Moctezuma , also known by a number of variant spellings including Montezuma, Moteuczoma, Motecuhzoma and referred to in full by early Nahuatl texts as Motecuhzoma Xocoyotzin, was the ninth tlatoani or ruler of Tenochtitlan, reigning from 1502 to 1520...
, and possibly to his lost treasure, the whereabouts of which remains one of Mexico's great mysteries. He has also confessed to once selling the apartment of an American neighbour in Spain and using much of the proceeds ($34,000) to finance his drug habit, as well as taking possession of a police car in Mexico and using it as his own for many months. For most of the 1990s, he lived as a recluse; in his own words, "repolarising and deconstructing" himself while listening to Russian and German orchestral music. After years of recovery and patchy employment he wrote his first novel on the floor of a box-room in Balham
Balham
Balham is a district of London, EnglandBalham can also refer to:*Balham, Ardennes, a commune in France*Balham station, railway and tube station in Balham, London*Balaam, a Biblical figure...
, south London, finally agreeing a publication deal with Faber & Faber on September 11, 2001, 45 minutes before the tragic attacks on New York. In the following weeks he relocated to a remote mountainside in County Leitrim
County Leitrim
County Leitrim is a county in Ireland. It is located in the West Region and is also part of the province of Connacht. It is named after the village of Leitrim. Leitrim County Council is the local authority for the county...
, Ireland, where he began work on a second novel. The Booker Prize comes with a monetary award of GBP
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
50,000. Upon being notified of his victory, Pierre said that the money would go part way toward paying off the debts incurred in his 20s, when psychological issues and drug abuse were driving forces.
Recent years
In 2005 DBC Pierre revisited the Mexico of his youth to finally explore and document the downfall of the Aztecs. In this revealing Channel 4Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
documentary he revisits the Aztecs' epic tale of decline and conquest. The Last Aztec, part historical film and part road movie, was aired in 2006 and follows Pierre as he traces the advance of the Spanish conquistadors toward the Aztec capital. It also picks up the threads he had intended to pursue in his ill-fated production of years earlier, centring on the wizards and witches of an Otomi
Otomi people
The Otomi people . Smaller Otomi populations exist in the states of Puebla, Mexico, Tlaxcala, Michoacán and Guanajuato. The Otomi language belonging to the Oto-Pamean branch of the Oto-Manguean language family is spoken in many different varieties some of which are not mutually intelligible.One of...
culture in a remote valley in the Sierra Madre
Sierra Madre
Sierra Madre may refer to one of several mountain ranges:*In Mexico:**Sierra Madre Occidental, a mountain range in northwestern Mexico and southern Arizona...
mountains of central Mexico.
In 2007 his award-winning first novel, Vernon God Little
Vernon God Little
Vernon God Little is a novel by DBC Pierre. It was his debut novel and won the Booker Prize in 2003.-Plot introduction:The title character is a fifteen-year-old boy who lives in a small town in the U.S. state of Texas...
, was adapted by Tanya Ronder for the London stage. It was directed by Rufus Norris
Rufus Norris
Rufus Norris is an award-winning British theatre director who trained as an actor at RADA before turning to directing.In 2001 he won the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Newcomer for his production of Afore Night Came at the Young Vic....
at the Young Vic from 27 April – 9 June. To date the work has been translated in more than 40 countries worldwide and produced as a play by at least four theatre companies. The book has also been optioned for film, but no production has yet taken place.
In 2009, he donated the short story "Suddenly Dr Cox" to Oxfam's Ox-Tales
Ox-Tales
Ox-Tales refers to four anthologies of short stories written by 38 of the UK's best known authors. All the authors donated their stories to Oxfam...
project, four collections of UK stories written by 38 authors. Pierre's story was published in the Air collection. He is also a contributor to the 2009 rock biography on The Triffids
The Triffids
The Triffids were a seminal Australian alternative rock and pop band formed in Perth, Western Australia, in May 1978 with charismatic, David McComb as singer-songwriter, guitarist, bass guitarist and keyboardist. They achieved negligible success in Australia, but greater success in the U.K...
Vagabond Holes: David McComb and the Triffids, edited by Australian academics Niall Lucy
Niall Lucy
Niall Lucy is an Australian writer and scholar best known for his work in deconstruction.-Career:Niall Lucy is a professor in the School of Media, Culture & Creative Arts at Curtin University, and a former Head of the School of Arts at Murdoch University...
and Chris Coughran.
Published works
- Vernon God LittleVernon God LittleVernon God Little is a novel by DBC Pierre. It was his debut novel and won the Booker Prize in 2003.-Plot introduction:The title character is a fifteen-year-old boy who lives in a small town in the U.S. state of Texas...
(January 2003, Booker Prize 2003) - Ludmila's Broken EnglishLudmila's Broken EnglishLudmila's Broken English is the second novel by Booker Prize winner DBC Pierre. It was published in March 2006.- Plot introduction :The novel follows two initially separate narratives set in the United Kingdom and Eastern Europe...
(February 2006) - Suddenly Doctor Cox (May 2009)
- Lights Out in Wonderland (September 2010)
Appearances
- Tilley'sTilley'sTilley's Devine café Gallery is a well-known café in the suburb of Lyneham in Canberra, Australia. It was named after Matilda 'Tilly' Devine, a gangster and madame from Sydney who lived in the mid-twentieth century....
, Canberra, where DBC Pierre was presented with organic corn (in reference to his first encounter with Australian Customs, when Pierre, as a 20 year-old, returned some of his deceased father's belongings in boxes to Australia from Mexico City. One box was found to contain cobs of ornamental maize from a table decoration, and Pierre was subsequently charged and convicted in court for "willfully importing plants or parts of plants" and "signing a false customs declaration." Commenting on this first contact with his birthplace as a returning adult, Pierre later said that he spent much of his time in Australia in either court or hospital - the latter referring particularly to a near-fatal car crash which required the right side of his face to be reconstructed, leaving scars he still bears today). (Book launch, March 2006.) - Enough RopeEnough RopeEnough Rope with Andrew Denton is a television interview show originally broadcast on ABC Television in Australia...
, interview with Andrew DentonAndrew DentonAndrew Christopher Denton is an Australian television producer, comedian, Gold Logie-nominated television presenter and former radio host, and was the host of the ABC's weekly television interview program Enough Rope. He is known for his comedy and interviewing technique...
. (Interview, May 2006.) - "Fairwell to the wharf of innocence", an essay on the music of David McComb & The Triffids, appears in the collection 'Vagabond Holes' (Freemantle Press, 2009)
Quotations
- I likened writing to painting a still life with live rats. I even wrote that on my study wall, and within days there was an infestation of rats in the house. What are the Gods like?
- My family planted the idea that I could do anything ... I just want to apologise for taking it so literally.- DBC Pierre, part of his acceptance speech for the Man Booker Prize
- Mexico, with its contrasts, its crushing poverty and sparkling wealth, its institutionalised corruption and cultural wisdom, its love of life and its embracing of death, undoubtedly set me on a path toward the deep end, philosophically and emotionally speaking.– DBC Pierre
External links
- Recorded interview with DBC Pierre Feeding the Chooks
- Interview discussing Ludmila's Broken English: article on DBC Pierre (BBC Collective)
- How did I get here?: article on DBC Pierre (The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
) - Strong first impression: interview with DBC Pierre (Powell's City of Books)
- What have you learnt in your time on this planet?–recorded interview with DBC Pierre, April 2006 (RTRFMRTRFMRTRFM is a not-for-profit, community radio station based in Perth, Western Australia. It is self-funded, largely through listener subscription and fund-raising events, however it does carry some "advertising material" at a maximum of 5 mins per hour. It broadcasts 24 hours a day, on 92.1 in the...
) - Faber and Faber: DBC Pierre's UK publisher
- A short interview with DBC Pierre: discussing Ludmila's Broken EnglishLudmila's Broken EnglishLudmila's Broken English is the second novel by Booker Prize winner DBC Pierre. It was published in March 2006.- Plot introduction :The novel follows two initially separate narratives set in the United Kingdom and Eastern Europe...
- BBC Entertainment: video and links to DBC Pierre and Man Booker