Les Carlyon

Who is Les Carlyon?

Leslie Allen "Les" Carlyon, AC, is an Australian writer, who was born in northern Victoria in 1942. He has been editor of Melbourne's journal of record, The Age, as well as editor-in-chief of The Herald and Weekly Times Ltd, and has twice won the Walkley Award for journalism. In 1993 he won the Graham Perkin Australian journalist of the year award.

His book Gallipoli, a popular history of the Allied Gallipoli campaign in the Dardanelles during the First World War, was published in 2001, and met with critical and commercial success in Australia, New Zealand and England.

His The Great War, published in 2006, is the story of Australian forces on the Western Front in France and Belgium also during World War I.

In the 2014 Queen's Birthday Honours List, Carlyon was appointed as a Companion of the Order of Australia, for "eminent service to literature through the promotion of the national identity as an author, editor and journalist, to the understanding and appreciation of Australia's war history, and to the horseracing industry".

The name Carlyon is of Cornish origin.