Luke Davies

Luke Davies is a novelist, screenwriter, and essayist whose poetry has garnered popular and critical acclaim. He was born and raised in Sydney, Australia, and earned a BA from the University of Sydney. He is the author of the poetry collections Four Plots for Magnets (1982), Absolute Event Horizon (1994), Running With Light (1999), Totem (2005), and Interferon Psalms (2011). His chapbooks include The Entire History of Architecture … and other love poems (2001) and Feral Aphorisms (2011).

Mystical, cosmic, lush, and humorous, Davies’s poetry references contemporary culture and figures. His Totem, a book of love poetry, received numerous awards in Australia, winning both an Age Poetry Book of the Year award and overall Age Book of the Year award, as well as the Grace Leven Prize for Poetry, the South Australian Premier’s Literary Award for Poetry, and the Philip Hodgins Memorial Medal—an unusual feat for a book of poetry.

Davies’s semi-autobiographical novel Candy (1997) was made into a movie in 2006. Davies co-wrote the screenplay with director Neil Armfield. The movie starred Heath Ledger, Abbie Cornish, and Geoffrey Rush and won awards from both the Australian Writers Guild and the Film Critics Circle of Australia. Davies’s other novels include Isabelle the Navigator (2000) and God of Speed (2008).