DBC Pierre is an Australian-born writer currently residing in London. Born Peter Warren Finlay, the “DBC” stands for “Dirty But Clean”. “Pierre” was a nickname bestowed on him by childhood friends after a cartoon character of that name. Pierre was awarded the Booker Prize for fiction on 14 October 2003 for his novel Vernon God Little. He is the third Australian to be so honoured, although he has told the British press that he prefers to consider himself a Mexican. In an interview with the Guardian (U.K.), Pierre explains his varied upbringing, “I grew up with a real sense of cultural homelessness…. I haven’t been successful in fitting in anywhere. I clearly wasn’t Mexican, although I could move in that culture as easily as anywhere. I’m a British national but wasn’t quite from here; and I went to school with a lot of expat Americans…. There’s nothing I love more than to just be part of something, for someone to pay you a hello.”

DBC PIERRE

The first three novels were an attempt to define the feeling of the new century. Or perhaps to find any hope within the feeling.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

You’ve said your god animal is the strangely noble rodent capybara and religion has featured in a number of your books. And rowdy, risk-filled and lawless as your fiction is, it also seems underpinned by an awareness of injustice, the flaws in our system, and a yearning for truth/beauty in all our current chaos. So what is your relationship to nature, spirituality and how it has changed over the years?

Good question. I guess like many kids I was raised under a technicolor cloud of either bullshit or sublime truth - the church, the nobility of authority, humankind’s basic orientation to goodness and greatness - and of course, depending how you perceive these things, or how they’re exposed to you, they either make for a disappointing ride, or you end up chairman of the UN. In my case, it was a disappointing ride, and I found much of it to be bullshit. But somehow I still felt love and hope for ‘higher’ qualities. Maybe all I’ve done since then is try to find them. Nature, I believe, is indifferent, as is the church. But I swear I can sense an energy surging towards things positive, towards miracles even. That really keeps me going. So I attach my own sacredness to things, maybe all I’ve done is replace the notions of childhood with other symbols that carry the same good...I think these are some voices I’ve heard in my life, in other people. I simply sent them on bigger adventures.

The prison at Tegel was part of an organized program with them, they also have writing competitions with other prisons, and visits from writers, etc. I hope it’s still going. I went out of curiosity; it would have been arrogant to imagine I could do any good by going. But I was interested. I find it an unusual and cruel punishment to lock someone up for years and years, rather than say just shoot them. Something more crucial than life seems to get killed there. Anyway, it was overwhelming in the end; I had fucking tears walking out of place. I couldn’t turn around for the last word, couldn’t go back in for a coffee, couldn’t shout a message even. Guards pulled us apart in the end as if we were still at the scene of a robbery. And that one man I had been talking to wasn’t a hardened thug, he was sensitive and honest and bewildered, trying to make sense of things through writing.

This interview was conducted by Mia Funk with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producer on this podcast was Nina Hook. Digital Media Coordinator is Hannah Story Brown.