Bryce Courtenay

Author profile

born

August 14, 1933 in Johannesburg, South Africa

gender

male

website

http://www.brycecourtenay.com

genre

Fiction

About this author

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I was born illegitimately in 1933 in South Africa and spent my early childhood years in a small town deep in the heart of the Lebombo mountains.

It was a somewhat isolated community and I grew up among farm folk and the African people. At the age of five I was sent to a boarding school which might be better described as a combination orphanage and reform school, where I learned to box - though less as a sport and more as a means to stay alive.

But I survived to return to a small mountain town named Barberton in the North Eastern part of the country.

Here I met Doc, a drunken German music teacher who spent the next few years filling my young mind with the wonders of nature as we roamed the high mountains. His was the best education I was ever t...more I was born illegitimately in 1933 in South Africa and spent my early childhood years in a small town deep in the heart of the Lebombo mountains.

It was a somewhat isolated community and I grew up among farm folk and the African people. At the age of five I was sent to a boarding school which might be better described as a combination orphanage and reform school, where I learned to box - though less as a sport and more as a means to stay alive.

But I survived to return to a small mountain town named Barberton in the North Eastern part of the country.

Here I met Doc, a drunken German music teacher who spent the next few years filling my young mind with the wonders of nature as we roamed the high mountains. His was the best education I was ever to receive, despite the scholarship I won to a prestigious boy's school and thereafter to a university in England where I studied Journalism.

I came to Australia because I was banned from returning to my own country.

This was due to the fact that I had started a weekend school for Africans in the school hall of the prestigious boy's school I attended.

One day the school hall was raided by the police who then branded me a Communist as they considered educating Africans a subversive act.

While studying journalism, I met a wonderful Australian girl.

"Come to my country!" Benita invited.

I did, and soon after arriving in Australia, married her. Benita gave me three splendid sons, Brett, Adam and Damon. Brett, who married Ann has given me three lovely grandsons, Ben now 14, Jake is about to turn 12 and Marcus is almost 6 years old.

I have lived all my Australian life in Sydney (the nicest place on earth) and, until I started writing fiction, made my career in advertising working as a copywriter and creative director.

At the age of 55 I decided to take the plunge. I had been telling stories since the age of five and had always known I would be a writer some day, though life kept getting in the way until I realised that it was either now or never.(less)

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Books by Bryce Courtenay

Average rating: 4.12 · 35,706 ratings · 3,664 reviews · 35 distinct works

	The Power of One 4.30 avg rating — 21,885 ratings — published 1989 — 5 editions	My rating:
	Tandia 3.84 avg rating — 2,301 ratings — published 1992	My rating:
	Jessica 3.99 avg rating — 1,650 ratings — published 1998 — 16 editions	My rating:
	The Potato Factory (The Potato Factory, #1) 3.92 avg rating — 1,647 ratings — published 1995 — 19 editions	My rating:
	April Fool's Day 4.10 avg rating — 1,360 ratings — published 1993 — 22 editions	My rating:
	Tommo and Hawk (The Potato Factory, #2) 3.80 avg rating — 1,248 ratings — published 1998 — 12 editions	My rating:
	Solomon's Song (The Potato Factory, #3) 3.82 avg rating — 897 ratings — published 2004 — 16 editions	My rating:
	Four Fires 3.97 avg rating — 716 ratings — published 2001 — 13 editions	My rating:
	The Persimmon Tree 3.82 avg rating — 652 ratings — published 2007 — 10 editions	My rating:
	Whitethorn 3.82 avg rating — 531 ratings — published 2005 — 16 editions	My rating:

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Quotes by Bryce Courtenay

“Sometimes the slightest things change the directions of our lives, the merest breath of a circumstance, a random moment that connects like a meteorite striking the earth. Lives have swiveled and changed direction on the strength of a chance remark.”
― Bryce Courtenay

tags: chance , change , direction , fate

180 people liked it

“First with the head, then with the heart.”
― Bryce Courtenay, The Power of One

53 people liked it

“Intelligence is a harder gift. For this you must work, you must practice it, challenge it, and maybe toward the end of your life you will master it. Cleverness is the shadow, whereas intelligence is the substance.
-Doc”
― Bryce Courtenay

31 people liked it

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