Australian author Bryce Courtenay dies

Much-loved Australian author Bryce Courtenay has died aged 79.

Courtenay died at his home in Canberra on Thursday 22 November. The bestselling author had been suffering from terminal gastric cancer.

Courtenay’s publisher Penguin issued a statement on behalf of Courtenay’s wife Christine on 23 November. Christine thanked Bryce’s family and friends ‘and all of his fans around the world’ for their love and support, and requested privacy as the family ‘cherish[es] his memory’.

Penguin Australia CEO Gabrielle Coyne said in the same statement that it has been Penguin’s ‘great privilege to be Bryce’s publisher for the past fifteen years’. ‘We, as well as his many fans will forever miss Bryce’s indomitable spirit, his energy and his commitment to storytelling,’ said Coyne.

Courtenay’s long-standing publisher at Penguin, Bob Sessions, said he will miss his ‘very special friend’.

‘Bryce took up writing in his fifties, after a successful career in advertising,’ said Sessions. ‘His output and his professionalism made him a pleasure to work with, and I’m happy to say he became a good friend, referring to me as "Uncle Bob", even when we were robustly negotiating the next book contract. 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.’

‘Virtually each year for the last fifteen years, I have worked with Bryce on a new novel,’ said Sessions. ‘He would write a six-hundred page book in around six months, year in, year out. To achieve that feat he used what he called ‘bum glue’, sometimes writing for more than twelve hours a day. He brought to writing his books the same determination and dedication he showed in the more than forty marathons he ran, most of them when he was well over fifty. Not to have a new Bryce Courtenay novel to work on will leave a hole in my publishing life. Not to have Bryce Courtenay in my life, will be to miss the presence of a very special friend.’

Courtenay announced in September that he had been diagnosed with terminal gastric cancer and that his latest book Jack of Diamonds, published by Penguin this month, would be his last.

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