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David Malouf

David Malouf

David Malouf is the internationally acclaimed author of novels including Ransom (2009), The Great World (1990) (winner of the Commonwealth Writers' prize and the Prix Femina Etranger), Remembering Babylon (1993) (winner of the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award), An Imaginary Life (1978), Conversations at Curlow Creek (1996), Dream Stuff (2000), Every Move You Make (2006) and his autobiographical classic 12 Edmondstone Street (1985). His The Complete Stories, published in 2008, won the Australia-Asia Literary Award of the same year. His most recent books are A First Place (2014) and The Writing Life (2014). He was born in 1934 and was brought up in Brisbane. David Malouf is the ABR Laureate.

Return to Babylon: Barrie Kosky’s production of Verdi’s ‘Nabucco’

October 1995, no. 175 01 October 1995
In Sydney last month, Barrie Kosky’s production of Verdi’s Nabucco was booed by a section of its first-night audience, a unique occurrence, this, at the Australian Opera, but one that Kosky took in good part as an extension of the ‘playful’ side of the evening’s events. The complaint against the production was twofold. First, that it was distracting and for this reason did not show prop ... (read more)

David Malouf reviews 'The Oxford Companion to Australian Music' edited by Warren Bebbington

November 1997, no. 196 23 September 2020
Twenty-five or thirty years ago, when it was still fashionable to speak of the Great Australian Emptiness, we took this image of the geographical dead heart of Australia as implying a cultural emptiness as well, a suggestion that too little had happened or been made here to give the mind, the civilised mind, anything to hang on to, identify with or make its own. Well, the idea of geographical emp ... (read more)

'A Grace Note', a poem by David Malouf

August 2020, no. 423 24 July 2020
Four in the morning. Stumbling backto bed, the softnessof my pillow in the spreadof my fingers assumesagain, after so long, the still longed forround of your head. How does it feel,out there in that undiscoveredcountry from whose bourne et cetera,to be recalled, drawn backto your name on my lips again,the warmth of the flesh? I recall the promisewe made and broke. Now,on a grace noteof unbodied ... (read more)

David Malouf reviews 'Patrick White: A life' by David Marr

August 1991, no. 133 01 August 1991
Writing to Geoffrey Dutton in 1969, Patrick White confesses: ‘All my life I have been rather bored, and I suppose in desperation I have been inclined to weave these fantasies in which I become more “involved”. Ignoble, au fond, but there have been a few results.’ He is speaking, in that typically wry last phrase, of the books. My guess is that one of the great frustrations of the last six ... (read more)

States of Poetry 2016 - New South Wales | 'Visitation on Myrtle Street' by David Malouf

States of Poetry New South Wales - Series One 22 February 2016
I was woken at some hourof darkness before dawn by a scent so heavyon my senses, on the room, that I was convinced a burglar had broken inand was loiteringupstairs or in the hallway, or having caught my step on the stairs above him was lying lowin the laundry, or sittingupright and unbreathing in one of the Windsor chairs, unaware it washis scent that betrayed him.I checked the door to the balc ... (read more)

States of Poetry 2016 - New South Wales | 'Pyrra' by David Malouf

States of Poetry New South Wales - Series One 22 February 2016
after Horace, Odes I, v   What slim-hipped beachboy drippingwith musk is riding younow on a bed of rosesin your snug den, Pyrra? Is it for him you have braidedthose honey-gold locksin a knot so neat, sohomely? One day soon, black moods, blacklooks, he'll be cursingyou and the ficklegods who have dropped him, but for now he'shooked, you're his, all thisis for him:calm seas, endless horizo ... (read more)

States of Poetry 2016 - New South Wales | 'Late Poem' by David Malouf

States of Poetry New South Wales - Series One 22 February 2016
A soft October morning,adagio sostenuto. Some partof me is still delayed in sleep. It is one withnight, with daylightstars, moths that fumble at a window pane, bewilderedthat this tract of sky,like no other, will not yield. The coffee cup, double espresso,is deeper than it looks.Each sip I take a dark reaffirmation.A practicerun for the big sleep.   David Malouf ... (read more)

States of Poetry 2016 - New South Wales | 'From the Balcony: Sunday Afternoon' by David Malouf

States of Poetry New South Wales - Series One 22 February 2016
Today in Sunday weather grevillia leavesin turmoil, no evident breeze. A sugar hit. A honey-eater, upside down at tilt and tumble. The body also in Sunday mode. The mindidling on automatic with no needto be occupied or coloured, having come at last to the end of a long apprenticeship in learning to leavewell alone. No empire to account to. Noaccount-books to square. The anxiety of nothing in ha ... (read more)