By ROD McGUIRK
Associated Press
Associated Press
Best-selling
Australian author Bryce Courtenay, whose first and final books drew on
his tough early-life experiences in Africa, has died of stomach cancer.
He was 79.
He started writing in
midlife and called his first novels "practice books," but his debut was a
success. "The Power of One" was published in 1989, translated into 12
languages and became a hit movie.
His
publisher Penguin Group said Friday that Courtenay died at his family
home in the
Australian capital Canberra late Thursday surrounded by his
family and pets.
His 21st novel, "Jack of Diamonds," was published on Nov. 12 and included a moving epilogue to his readers.
"It's been a privilege to write for you and to have you accept me as a storyteller in your lives," he wrote.
"Now, as my story draws to an end, may I say only, `Thank you. You have been simply wonderful,'" he added.
Courtenay
was born the illegitimate son of a dressmaker on Aug. 14, 1933, in the
mountain town of Barberton in what is now the Limpopo province of South
Africa.
By the age of 17, he was
working in the dangerous mines of what is now Zimbabwe, which paid his
way to Britain where he studied at the London School of Journalism. He
met an Australian, Benita Solomon, whom he followed to her hometown of
Sydney in 1958 and married.
He fell
into a career in advertising with U.S. agency McCann Erikson at the age
of 26 and rose to creative director. He had an epiphany at the age of
50 when he decided to fulfill a lifelong ambition to be a novelist.
"The
Power of One" was to be the first of three "practice books" Courtenay
planned to write over three years before taking two years to write a
fourth book which he hoped would find a publisher.
"I
was absolutely staggered when somebody wanted to publish it in the
first place," Courtenay said in his official biography released by
Penguin.
"Now its worldwide success
and the fact that it's available in 12 languages still amazes me," he
added. It became a movie starring Morgan Freeman.
Courtenay
dedicated its sequel, "Tandia," to his third son, Damon, who died of
medically-acquired AIDS at the age of 24 on April 1, 1991 - two months
before the book was published.
That tragedy inspired his third book, "April Fool's Day," that deals with the public fear of AIDS and was published in 1993.
In June, doctors told Courtenay that there was no hope of curing his stomach cancer.
Bob
Sessions, Courtenay's longstanding publisher at Penguin, said the
author would produce a 600-page book in only six months, sometimes
writing for more than 12 hours a day.
"He
was a born storyteller and I would tell him he was a latter-day Charles
Dickens with his strong and complex plots, larger-than-life characters
and his ability to appeal to a large number of readers," Sessions said.
