Tony Peake


Tony Peake is a novelist, short story writer and biographer, who was born in South Africa and has been based in Britain since the 1970s.

Biography

Early life

Tony Peake was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1951 to English parents. His father, Bladon Peake, was a theatre and film director. Peake was educated at Waterkloof House Preparatory School in Pretoria, St. Martin's School in Johannesburg and at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, where he read History and English, graduating with a BA degree in English.

Career

Peake moved to London in 1973. He worked as production manager at the Open Space Theatre under Charles Marowitz and Thelma Holt. In the late 1970s he lived for a while on Ibiza and taught English, History and Drama at the Morna Valley School. Since then he has lived in London and Mistley and worked in modelling, acting, film distribution and – latterly – as a literary agent.
As a short story writer and essayist, Peake has contributed to four volumes of Winter’s Tales ; The Penguin Book of Contemporary South African Short Stories ; The Mammoth Book of Gay Short Stories ; New Writing 13 ; The Way We Are Now: gay and lesbian lives in the 21st century ; Seduction, a themed anthology which he also edited; Yes, I Am! Writing by South African Gay Men ; Speak My Language, and Other Stories and Best British Short Stories 2016.
Peake is also the author of three novels, A Summer Tide, Son to the Father and North Facing, and the authorised biography of Derek Jarman.

Works

Books