Arthur Bryce Courtenay, AM (14 August 1933 – 22 November 2012) was a South African-Australian advertising director and novelist.

[2] Bryce Courtenay spent most of his early years in a small village in the Lebombo Mountains in the Limpopo province.

[4] Along with Geoff Pike, Courtenay developed the concept behind the Cadbury Yowie, a chocolate that contained a children's toy, typically an Australian or New Zealand native animal.

Benita Courtenay died on 11 March 2007, at the age of 72, four months after being diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia.

Courtenay claimed that this was because "American publishers for the most part have difficulties about Australia[;] they are interested in books in their own country first and foremost.