Carey to receive Bodley Medal

Double Booker-winner Peter Carey is to receive the Bodley Medal, following previous recipients including playwright Alan Bennett, who took the accolade in 2008, and P D James.

The Bodley Medal is awarded by the Bodleian Libraries of the University of Oxford to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the worlds of literature, culture, science, and communication.

Australian Carey, who won the Man Booker for Oscar and Lucinda in 1988 and for The True History of the Kelly Gang in 2001, has won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and the Miles Franklin Literary Award.

He said: "As we enter a warmer, darker, more turbulent age, the Bodleian Libraries will assume an importance far greater than anything we are yet prepared to imagine.  I would be honoured to be even a footnote in the history of this great institution."

Carey will receive the award on 1st April after his delivery of the Bodley Lecture, which is to be held for the first time at the Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival.

The Bodley Medal was first engraved in 1646 to honour Sir Thomas Bodley, the founder of the Bodleian Library. The new medal was struck in 2001.

Photo credit: Ashley Gilbertson