Two-time Booker Prize winner Peter Carey will be making his only Bay Area appearance on May 5 at the First Congressional Church of Berkeley.

Carey, author of Oscar and Lucinda and Illywhacker, will be talking about his most recent novel, Parrot and Olivier in America, in which he reimagines Alexis de Tocqueville’s journey to and through Jacksonian America

The event is organized by Berkeley Arts & Letters who write:

Inspired by reading Democracy in America and finding Tocqueville worrying about the same things Carey himself worried about — particularly how you can have a real culture in a capitalist democratic society, “Parrot and Olivier”  is part re-imagination of history, part love letter from Carey to his adopted country, and wholly a brilliant new novel from the man novelist Edmund White calls “one of the best writers in English.”

Tickets cost $12 advance or $15 door. Details at Brown Paper Tickets or by phoning 1-800-838-3006.

Photo of Peter Carey by Ashley Gilbertson.

Tracey Taylor is co-founder of Berkeleyside and co-founder and editorial director of Cityside, the nonprofit parent to Berkeleyside and The Oaklandside. Before launching Berkeleyside, Tracey wrote for...