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  • Published: 1 September 2005
  • ISBN: 9781741660043
  • Imprint: Vintage Australia
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 432

The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith




‘Alternately funny and poignant, a picaresque novel that avid fiction readers will devour. ‘ Booklist

If you are not a citizen of Voorstand, you may not be familiar with the strange case of Tristan Smith and his illegal appropriation of Bruder Mouse. Even if you are a citizen of faraway Efica, you will only have heard rumours about the juggling, the somersaulting, the Burro Plasse tunnel, and the motel on the border . . . Here, for the first time, is the truth about Tristan Smith. This fully annotated edition follows Tristan's career from his birth in the Republic of Efica in the year 371 to the present day. Severely afflicted, doomed never to be taller than three foot six, Tristan Smith faces death and danger from the first moment of his energetic and ambitious life. THE UNUSUAL LIFE OF TRISTAN SMITH is dense, funny, and moving, an unprecedented work of the imagination, a modern world as packed with incident and character as a Victorian novel, an allegory that is most remarkable for the thread of love and loyalty that runs through its richly imagined tapestry.

  • Published: 1 September 2005
  • ISBN: 9781741660043
  • Imprint: Vintage Australia
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 432

About the author

Peter Carey

Peter Carey was born in Bacchus Marsh, Victoria, and now lives in New York. He is the author of fourteen novels (including one for children), two volumes of short stories, and two books on travel. Amongst other prizes, Carey has won the Booker Prize twice (for Oscar and Lucinda and True History of the Kelly Gang), the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize twice (for Jack Maggs and True History of the Kelly Gang), and the Miles Franklin Literary Award three times (for Bliss, Oscar and Lucinda and Jack Maggs). He is an officer of the Order of Australia and a Fellow of both the Royal Society of Literature and the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

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Praise for The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith

‘Carey... has outdone himself in this bizarre, uncannily strange dystopia about the life of a dwarf, who narrates the tale...His novel approach to the narrative -t he entire tale is in the form of Tristan's direct testimony to formal authorities of Voorstand culture - is brilliantly maintained throughout, and the fairy-tale quality of its figuration makes for a surpassingly rich feast of metaphors and mercurial meanings-George Orwell and Lewis Carroll wrapped into one. Publishers Weekly

‘Tristan Smith's unusual life makes for an unusual novel. Australian Carey, as much acclaimed on his side of the Pacific as on ours, has created not only a complete human being, but also a complete world. Alternately funny and poignant, a picaresque novel that avid fiction readers will devour. ‘ Booklist

‘This inventive, multilayered work should only add to Carey's already considerable reputation. Highly recommended.’ Library Journal