Bryce Courtenay
Bryce Courtenay was born illegitimately in South Africa in 1933, and was raised in the northern and north-eastern Transvaal, spending a period of his life in an orphanage. At the age of 11 won a scholarship to a private boarding school in Johannesburg. Moving to England at 17, he studied at the London School of Journalism, where he met his future wife, an Australian. He moved to Sydney in the mid-1950s and has lived in NSW ever since. Following a successful career in advertising, Courtenay reinvented himself as a full-time writer in 1988, at the age of 55.
He is the author of 19 novels, and is one of Australia's top-selling novelists. His first novel, Power of One, has sold seven million copies and been published in 15 languages. In 1990, the publication of this book saw him awarded Best New Novel in the British Book Awards. He collected the APA Who Weekly Readers' Choice Award for Australia's most popular novelist for 10 years running when it was discontinued in 1999. His autobiographical April Fool's Day is about medically induced AIDS, and is about his haemophiliac son Damon, who died from this condition. It is said to be one of Australia's highest selling autobiographies, with three-quarters of a million copies sold.
The very concept and the reassurance of a stamp … it's a licence to travel and it goes anywhere in the world. That little imprimatur on an envelope containing all this personal stuff and you know it's going to get there! Now that's what a stamp can do.
In 1995 Courtenay was made a Member of the Order of Australia in recognition of service to advertising and marketing to the community and as an author. Besides writing full time, he is active in many community causes and is an ambassador for Taronga Zoo, with a role in preserving frog species under threat.
