As the author tipped to become the first to win the Booker Prize three times, Peter Carey is not surprisingly a strong advocate of highbrow literature.
By Bonnie Malkin in Sydney - Published: The Telegraph
But his latest attack on the wider reading public has prompted his more populist rivals to claim that this time he has gone too far.
Never one to mince his words, the Australian has complained about "dumb" people putting cookery books and Dan Brown novels at the top of the most-read charts.
"We are getting dumber every day,’’ he said. "We are really, literally, forgetting how to read. We have yet to grasp the fact that consuming cultural junk is completely destructive of democracy."
He said that society had "forgotten how to be still" and was "intolerant of any news that is not entertaining".
Carey, 67, now a resident of New York, made the comments during a speech to close the Sydney Writer’s Festival. The author of 11 books is almost certain to be on the longlist for the Man Booker Prize when it is announced next month, with his latest novel Parrot and Olivier in America.
Many are tipping him to win an unprecedented third time, following his success with Oscar and Lucinda (1988) and True History of the Kelly Gang (2001).
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