This image has been sourced from Booktopia 3168844671484987427.jpg
y separately published work icon Parrot and Olivier in America single work   novel   historical fiction  
Issue Details: First known date: 2009... 2009 Parrot and Olivier in America
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Olivier is a young aristocrat, one of an endangered species born in France just after the Revolution. Parrot, the son of an itinerant English printer, wanted to be an artist but has ended up in middle age as a servant.

When Olivier sets sail for the New World - ostensibly to study its prisons, but in reality to avoid yet another revolution - Parrot is sent with him, as spy, protector, foe and foil. Through their adventures with women and money, incarceration and democracy, writing and painting, they make an unlikely pair. But where better for unlikely things to flourish than in the glorious, brand-new experiment, America?

A dazzlingly inventive reimagining of Alexis de Tocqueville's famous journey, Parrot and Olivier in America brilliantly evokes the Old World colliding with the New. Above all, it is a wildly funny, tender portrait of two men who come to form an almost impossible friendship, and a completely improbable work of art.' (From the publisher's website.)

Notes

  • Dedication: For Frances Coady.
  • Epigraph: 'Can it be believed that the democracy which has overthrown the feudal system and vanquished kings will retreat before tradesmen and capitalists?' 'It is not good to announce every truth.' ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Publication Details of Earliest 2 Known Versions of 13

1
    • Camberwell, Camberwell - Kew area, Melbourne - Inner South, Melbourne, Victoria,: Hamish Hamilton , 2009 .
      image of person or book cover 3168844671484987427.jpg
      This image has been sourced from Booktopia
      Extent: 452p.
      Note/s:
      • Published October 26, 2009
      ISBN: 9781926428147 (hbk.)
    • Camberwell, Camberwell - Kew area, Melbourne - Inner South, Melbourne, Victoria,: Hamish Hamilton , 2010 .
      image of person or book cover 1552527603968763996.jpg
      This image has been sourced from Booktopia
      Extent: 451p.
      Note/s:
      • Publication date: 14 April 2010.
      ISBN: 9781926428246 (pbk.)
Show 5 more publications of this version
2
Form: audiobook
    • Tullamarine, Keilor - Sunshine area, Melbourne - West, Melbourne, Victoria,: Bolinda Audio Books , 2009 .
      image of person or book cover 2132891027946936371.jpeg
      Extent: 17 hours and 45 min.p.
      Description: 14 audio discs (CD); 1 CD (MP3)
      Reprinted: 2010
      Note/s:
      • Published by Bolinda on 1 November 2009; available 28 November 2010 

        Released on Audible on 2 December 2009

      ISBN: 9781742145709 (CD), 1742145701 (CD), 9781742335315 (CD), 9781441729750 (CD), 9781742672281, 9781743131145, 1743131143, 9781742145877 (MP3), 1742145876 (MP3), 9781742335841 (MP3), 9781742335315
    • Ashland - Oregon,: Blackstone Publishing , 2010 .
      Extent: 17 hours and 30 min.p.
      Description: 14 audio discs (CD)
      ISBN: 9781441729750 (CD), 9781441729774 (CD), 1441729771 (CD), 9781441729804, 9781441729811, 1441729801
Show 1 more publication of this version

Other Formats

Works about this Work

1
Local Publisher, Global Agent Keyvan Allahyari , 2023 single work criticism
— Appears in: Peter Carey : The Making of a Global Novelist 2023; (p. 133-189)

'This chapter focuses on three late-career Carey novels, namely My Life as a FakeParrot and Olivier in America, and Amnesia, on the thread to complete my analysis of Carey’s ongoing engagement in and around his fiction with the status of the Australian author in the transnational literary marketplace. Carey’s visibility in this period is marked by his shifting position in relation to the globalising publishing industry, the rise of digital publishing, and the mutations of academic and political recognition into convertible cultural capital in the literary field. These changes in practice and modes of recognition are analogous with the aggressive move towards monopoly capitalism by corporate systems in liberal democracies, including Australia.' (Publication abstract)

2
True History of a Rogue : Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey Luigi Gussago , 2017 single work essay
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 77 no. 1 2017; (p. 199-219)

As a silent rule, historians do not mess with creative writers, but it a fact that works like Umberto Eco's best selling The Name of the Rose (1980) appeal to the essence and scope of narrating the past. Likewise, a host of modern and postmodern authors like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Jose Saramago, Doris Lessing or Patrick White have opened new frontiers in historical fiction, submerging fact with invention, often disproving official historical evidence. The advent of anti-idealism in many fields of the humanities has also downsized history from indisputable, factual eyewitness to an elaborate, time-constrained, and often reticent account. Reliability and faithfulness have ceased to be the purpose of historical fiction and, to be true, what is at stake is not only the process of fictionalising history, but also the transmission of historical events as a distinct kind of narrative.' (Introduction)

3
On the Genealogy of Democracy : Reading Peter Carey's Parrot and Olivier in America Peter Mathews , 2012 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , vol. 27 no. 2 2012; (p. 68-80)
4
A Nine-Course Rendering of the New American Democracy A. Digger Stolz , 2011 single work review
— Appears in: Antipodes , June vol. 25 no. 1 2011; (p. 100-101)

— Review of Parrot and Olivier in America Peter Carey , 2009 single work novel
5
Australia más cerca Nicholas Birns , 2011 single work column
— Appears in: El país , 7 May 2011;
La literatura de un país hecho con partes de todo el mundo protagoniza un fenómeno global y multilateral. Escritores de prestigio cuyas obras han alcanzado un registro intelectual posmoderno. España empieza a conocer más este nuevo territorio literario. [Spain gets to know a little better the new terrain of Australian literature, which is both postmodern and transnational. - Translation]
6
[Review] Parrot and Olivier in America Blair Mahoney , 2009 single work review
— Appears in: Bookseller + Publisher Magazine , October vol. 89 no. 3 2009; (p. 28)

— Review of Parrot and Olivier in America Peter Carey , 2009 single work novel
7
Well Read Katharine England , 2009 single work review
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 24 October 2009; (p. 24)

— Review of Parrot and Olivier in America Peter Carey , 2009 single work novel ; Wonders of a Godless World Andrew McGahan , 2009 single work novel
8
American Sprawl Mark Thomas , 2009 single work review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 24 October 2009; (p. 11)

— Review of Parrot and Olivier in America Peter Carey , 2009 single work novel
9
Books Ian Nichols , 2009 single work review
— Appears in: The West Australian , 31 October 2009; (p. 26)

— Review of Parrot and Olivier in America Peter Carey , 2009 single work novel ; The First Boxer Christopher Ride , 2009 single work novel ; see more review subjects
10
The Oddest of Carey Couples Jennifer Byrne , 2009 single work review
— Appears in: The Age , 31 October 2009; (p. 20)

— Review of Parrot and Olivier in America Peter Carey , 2009 single work novel
11
Temple Hero Set for Small Screen Jason Steger , 2009 single work column
— Appears in: The Age , 2 May 2009; (p. 28)
A column canvassing current literary news including reports on a planned adaptation of Peter Temple's Jack Irish novels and news of the forthcoming publication by Penguin imprint Hamish Hamilton of Peter Carey's Parrot and Olivier in America. Jason Steger also provides an update on developments in the parallel importation debate.
12
Undercover Susan Wyndham , 2009 single work column
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 9-10 May 2009; (p. 26)

A column canvassing current literary news including a report on Penguin's forthcoming publication of Peter Carey's Parrot and Olivier in America.

Wyndham also reports on Philip McLaren's grievances with the Byron Bay Writers' Festival. McLaren asserts (inaccurately according to festival organisers) that the writers' festival has been practicing 'racism by omission' in not inviting Indigenous writers to participate. Wyndham notes the organisers' counter-claims, including a list of Aboriginal writers invited to attend in recent years.

13
Page Turners Gillian Dooley , 2010 single work column
— Appears in: The Adelaide Review , January no. 359 2010; (p. 27)
14
Off the Top Shelf Catherine Cole , Mark Rubbo , see more 2010 single work column
— Appears in: The Age , 31 July 2010; (p. 24-25)
The judges for the 2010 Age Book of the Year Awards provide a summary for the category for which they are responsible and comments on each shortlisted title.
15
Aussies Make Booker Long-List 2010 single work column
— Appears in: Illawarra Mercury , 29 July 2010; (p. 10)
Last amended 4 Feb 2025 14:21:02
Settings:
  • c
    United States of America (USA),
    c
    Americas,
  • c
    France,
    c
    Western Europe, Europe,
  • 1700-1799
  • 1820s
Newspapers:
Powered by Trove
X