True History of the Kelly Gang: A Novel

Peter Carey

окт. 2010 г. · Vintage Canada

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SOONTO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE

The international bestseller, Booker Prize winner, and winner of the 2001 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book.

Out of 19th century Australia rides a hero of his people and a man for all nations: Ned Kelly, the son of poor Irish immigrants, viewed by the authorities as a thief (especially of horses) and, as a cold-blooded killer. To the people, though, he was a patriot hounded unfairly by rich English landlords and their stooges. In the end, Kelly and his so-called gang (his younger brother and two friends) led a massive police manhunt on a wild goose chase that lasted twenty months, in which Ned’s talents as a bushman were augmented by bank robberies and the support of nearly everyone not in a uniform. His one demand – for which he would have surrendered himself was his jailed mother’s freedom.

Executed by hanging more than a century ago, speaking as if from the grave, Kelly still resonates as the most potent legend in the land down under.

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Peter Carey is the author of seven novels including the Booker Prize-winning Oscar and Lucinda. He has also written a book of short stories (The Fat Man in History) and a children’s book (The Big Bazoohley). Born in Australia in 1943, he has lived in New York City for ten years, with his wife and their two sons.