He was a co-editor of the poetry magazine P76, named after a failed Leyland car model, and for a time was associate poetry editor for Heat magazine. He has traveled widely, visiting Thailand, Malaysia, and Cambodia; his experiences overseas continue to inform his poetry.
Background
Ethnicity:
Father is an Anglo-Australian and mother is a Thai
Adam Aitken was born in London, England, in 1960, to an Anglo-Australian father and a Thai mother. He spent his childhood in South-east Asia, before migrating to Australia.
Now he lives on Pub Street, Siem Reap, Cambodia.
Education
He graduated from the University of Sydney in 1982.
Career
Aitken published his first collection, Letter to Marco Polo, in 1985. He has since published five further poetry collections, and his poems and short fiction have also been published widely in anthologies and literary journals.He has published three major collections in Australia and numerous poems in Australian literary journals. He is considered to be a poet of no particular school or trend, postmodern and lyrical at the same time. His influences range from the English Romantic to the French, American and British avante-garde, especially the New York school of poets. In 1996 his second poetry collection In One House was considered one of the best poetry collections of that year. In 2001, his third collection Romeo and Juliet in Subtitles, was shortlisted for the John Bray South Australian Literary Festival Award, and was runner-up for The Age Book of the Year poetry prize. His fourth collection, Eighth Habitation, was published by Giramondo Press in April 2009. His writing shows a deep interest in contemporary cultural issues, especially issues of identity and cultural hybridity. Adam's work has been translated into French, Swedish, German, Polish, Malay and Mandarin, and is published internationally, most notably in Poetry Magazine. For some years he has taught creative writing at the University of Technology, Sydney.