DBC Pierre facts for kids

Quick facts for kids DBC Pierre
Born	Peter Warren Finlay 1961 (age 63–64) Old Reynella, South Australia
Pen name	DBC Pierre
Occupation	Novelist
Period	2003–present
Genre	Satire, dark comedy, allegory
Notable works	Vernon God Little

Peter Warren Finlay (born in 1961), known by his pen name DBC Pierre, is an Australian writer. He is famous for his novel Vernon God Little.

Pierre was born in South Australia. He spent most of his childhood and young adult years in Mexico. Later, he lived in the Republic of Ireland. As of 2020, he lives in Cambridgeshire, England.

In 2003, DBC Pierre won the Man Booker Prize for his first novel, Vernon God Little. He was the third Australian-born author to win this important award. That same year, he also won the Whitbread First Novel Award. This made him the first writer to win both the Man Booker and a Whitbread award for the same book. His book also won the Bollinger Wodehouse Everyman Prize for funny literature. He also received a James Joyce Award from University College Dublin.

Growing Up

DBC Pierre was born in Old Reynella, South Australia. His father was teaching genetics at the University of Adelaide at the time. By the age of two, Pierre had already lived in the United States, the South Pacific, and Great Britain.

He grew up in Mexico City from a young age into his twenties. He went to school at the Edron Academy there. In 2004, he revisited his childhood home in Mexico for a BBC television show called Imagine.

Pierre remembers that he often returned to Durham, England, in July. He went to see the Durham Miners Gala. When he was seven, he got sick with hepatitis. He had to stay in bed for a year. After he got better, his parents decided to let him stay with his class. He had to catch up on schoolwork. Pierre felt this was when "all the trouble began" because it made him feel different from his friends.

His father was a pilot in World War II. He later became a scientist and worked with Nobel Peace Prize winner Norman Borlaug. Pierre's father became ill when Pierre was sixteen and passed away three years later.

Young Adult Years

Pierres time living in Mexico ended at the Reynosa border crossing. He says he was stopped while trying to bring a sports car into the country. At that time, Mexico had strict rules about importing foreign cars. Pierre managed to cross with the car. But his papers were cancelled by the time he reached Mexico City. This border crossing is mentioned in his novel Vernon God Little.

In his twenties, Pierre worked on a film project. It was about the fall of the Aztec Empire. He wanted to find the remains of Aztec Emperor Moctezuma II and his lost treasure. The location of Moctezuma's treasure is still a big mystery in Mexico.

In the 1990s, he wrote his first novel while living in Balham, south London. He signed a deal to publish it with Faber & Faber on September 11, 2001. Soon after, he moved to County Leitrim, Ireland. There, he started working on his second novel. The Man Booker Prize comes with a cash award of £50,000. The letters in his pen name, DBC, stand for "Dirty but clean." This refers to the difficult times he had faced in his life.

Recent Projects

In 2005, DBC Pierre went back to Mexico to learn more about the fall of the Aztecs. He made a Channel 4 documentary called The Last Aztec, which aired in 2006. This film followed Pierre as he traced the path of the Spanish conquistadors toward the Aztec capital. It also explored the ideas from his earlier film project. He looked into the wizards and witches of the Otomi culture in the Sierra Madre Oriental mountains of central Mexico.

In 2007, his first novel, Vernon God Little, was turned into a play. Tanya Ronder adapted it for the London stage. It was performed at the Young Vic theatre. The book has been translated into over 40 languages around the world. Several theatre groups have also performed it as a play.

In 2009, he wrote a short story called "Suddenly Dr Cox." He donated it to Oxfam's Ox-Tales project. This project included four collections of stories by 38 authors from the UK. Pierre's story was in the Air collection. He also contributed to a 2009 book about the rock band The Triffids. The book was called Vagabond Holes: David McComb and the Triffids.

Published Works

Novels

• Vernon God Little (January 2003, Man Booker Prize 2003)
• Ludmila's Broken English (February 2006)
• Lights Out in Wonderland (September 2010)
• Breakfast with the Borgias (July 2014)
• Meanwhile in Dopamine City (August 2020)

Non-fiction

• Release the Bats (July 2016)

Short stories

• Suddenly Doctor Cox (May 2009)
• Petit Mal (November 2013)

Images for kids

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  DBC Pierre

See also

In Spanish: DBC Pierre para niños