Clive James is an Australian who has made his mark in the UK as a journalist, poet, novelist, lyricist, writer, reviewer and TV presenter. It was in recognition of his distinguished career and his support for the families and victims of the Bali Bombing in 2002 that The Australia Day Foundation awarded him 2004 Australian of the Year in the UK.

Clive James was born in Sydney and educated at the Universities of Sydney and Cambridge, where he was President of the famous Cambridge Footlights Dramatic Club. He has lived in the UK since 1962, and initially came to prominence in the 1970s as the discerning and witty television critic for The Observer. As a writer, his most famous works form a three-part autobiography Unreliable Memoirs, Falling Towards England and May Week was in June. James is a household name in the UK principally through his television programmes and series, which include The Late Clive James, Saturday Night Clive, the 'Postcard From' series and Clive James Talking. He has written literary criticism extensively for newspapers, magazines and periodicals in Britain, Australia and the United States, but for James poetry is the “centre of everything” and last year he published The Book of my Enemy, collected verse from 1958 – 2003. Following the Bali Bomb tragedy in 2002, Clive James wrote a number of articles about the outrage and participated in the moving service at St Paul’s Cathedral for the victims and their families. He also organised a fund-raising event at Australia House for the victims.