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Peter Carey 2001

The Booker Prize 2001

Winner
Shortlist
Longlist

Punctuation and grammar went AWOL as Peter Carey became just the second novelist to win the prize twice, with an inventive and challenging take on the story of the outlaw Ned Kelly.

Carey’s novel purports to be the testament of the Australian ne’er-do-well Ned Kelly – an account of his upbringing, life and crimes. To capture Kelly’s Irish-convict-Ocker heritage, Carey invented his own vernacular (based on a bona fide Kelly text, the ‘Jerilderie Letter’) and jettisoned commas altogether and most grammatical rules too.

The inventiveness won over the critics. This was also the first year in the prize’s history that the judges revealed their longlist – then 24 novels. 
 

True History of the Kelly Gang
True History of the Kelly Gang

True History of the Kelly Gang

Winner of The Booker Prize 2001

Published by
Faber & Faber
Author Peter Carey skilfully makes art from the life story of his country’s greatest outlaw, giving his true measure of that ‘best bloody man’

The shortlist

Atonement
A young girl’s imagination runs riot with far-reaching and devastating consequences, in Ian McEwan’s masterpiece of metafiction
Oxygen
In Andrew Miller’s third novel, four people reach a turning point - and each is forced to take part in an act of liberation
number9dream
The second novel from David Mitchell, critically-acclaimed author of Ghostwritten and Cloud Atlas, is a mysterious coming-of-age story, set in Japan
The Dark Room
Rachel Seiffert explores the complex impact of history on a nation’s psyche through the individual stories of three 20th-century Germans
Hotel World
In this masterful and exuberant novel, Scottish author Ali Smith brings to life five unforgettable characters and traces their intersecting lives

The longlist

The 2001 judges