Luke Davies

Luke Davies was an Australian poet, author, and writer born in Sydney in 1962. He attended Sydney University and studied arts; his first collection of poems, Four plots for magnets was published in 1982. His debut novel, Candy, was released in 1997, and was based on his experience breaking his heroin addiction in 1990. Perhaps Davies' most celebrated poetry collection, Totem, was published in 2004, and preceded a shift of Davies' work into screenwriting as well. He began by writing the screenplay for the adaptation of his own novel, "Candy" (2006), which he also made a cameo in, then wrote and directed his own short film "Air" (2009). Davies wrote the screenplay for the biographical film "Life" (2015), which told the story of the friendship between Life photographer Dennis Stock and actor James Dean. His next screenplay was also based on a true story. "Lion" (2016) depicted the tale of an Indian man adopted by an Australian family as a child and his search to find his family via Google Maps; Davies' work was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at the Academy Awards in 2017.