Peter Carey Says People Are Getting Dumber Every Day



Australian author Peter Carey who has been tipped to become the first to win the Man Booker Prize three times says only dumb people would put cookery books and Dan Brown novels at the top of the most-read charts.

"We are getting dumber every day. We are really, literally, forgetting how to read. We have yet to grasp the fact that consuming cultural junk is completely destructive of democracy," said the 67 years old author of 11 books who lives in New York during a speech to close the 2010 Sydney Writer’s Festival.

Peter Carey has won the Man Booker Prize twice for Oscar and Lucinda (1988) and True History of the Kelly Gang (2001) .

Only Carey and JM Coetzee of South Africa have won the Booker Prize twice.