'After living in New York for 25 years, Peter Carey has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters – "the highest formal recognition of artistic merit in the United States". Only 250 living artists are members at any time and Carey, who has dual-citizenship, is the second Australian-born writer to join after Shirley Hazzard, who has noted that she and her late husband, Francis Steegmuller, were the only married couple among the membership. ...'