| Tony Peake | |
| Birth Place: | Johannesburg, South Africa |
| Education: | Waterkloof House Preparatory School |
| Occupation: | Novelist, short-story writer and biographer |
Tony Peake (born 1951) is a novelist, short story writer and biographer. He was born in South Africa, but has been based in Britain since the early 1970s.
Tony Peake was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1951 to English parents. His father, Bladon Peake (1902–1972), 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 (Hons) degree in English.
Peake moved to London in 1973. He worked as a production manager at the Open Space Theatre under Charles Marowitz and Thelma Holt. In the late 1970s, he lived for a while in 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 as a literary agent.
As a short story writer and essayist, Peake has contributed to four volumes of Winter’s Tales (edited by Robin Baird-Smith, Constable); The Penguin Book of Contemporary South African Short Stories (edited by Stephen Gray); The Mammoth Book of Gay Short Stories (edited by Peter Burton, Robinson Publishing); New Writing 13 (edited by Toby Litt and Ali Smith, Picador); The Way We Are Now: gay and lesbian lives in the 21st century (a Stonewall (UK) anthology edited by Ben Summerskill, Continuum); Seduction (Serpent's Tail), a themed anthology which he also edited; Yes, I Am! Writing by South African Gay Men (compiled by Robin Malan and Ashraf Johaardien, Junkets Publisher, Cape Town); Speak My Language, and Other Stories (edited by Torsten Højer, Robinson Publishing) and Best British Short Stories 2016 (edited by Nicholas Royle, Salt Publishing).
Peake is also the author of three novels, A Summer Tide (Abacus, 1993), Son to the Father (Little, Brown, 1995; Abacus, 1996) and North Facing (Myriad Editions, 2017), and the authorised biography of Derek Jarman (Little, Brown, 1999; Abacus, 2000; Overlook Press, 2000; reissued in the States by the University of Minnesota Press, 2011).[1]