When putting together a list of Australia's greatest writers, it's impossible to go past David Malouf.
Described by The Sun-Herald as Australia's "best living interpreter of place and tradition", the Turning Page Bookshop and the Blue Mountains Theatre and Community Hub is delighted to present David Malouf in Conversation on Sunday, May 10, from 2pm.
Malouf is the internationally acclaimed author of novels including Ransom, The Great World (winner of the Commonwealth Writers' prize and the Prix Femina Etranger), Remembering Babylon (winner of the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and shortlisted for the Booker Prize), An Imaginary Life, Conversations at Curlow Creek, Dream Stuff, Every Move You Make and his autobiographical classic, 12 Edmondstone Street.
His Collected Stories won the 2008 Australia-Asia Literary Award and were critiqued by The Australian's Peter Craven "as formidable and bewitching... No one else in this country has: the maintenance of tone, the expertness of prose, the easeful transition between lyrical and realist effects. The man is a master, a superb writer."
Malouf's most recent work involves three books of essays and lectures published by Random House Australia, bringing together a lifetime of observation, thoughts and ideas.
In A First Place, he explores the concept of home, where and what it is, before moving on to The Writing Life in which he interrogates the notion of what it means to be a writer and where writing begins. Finally, Being There is a collection about the things that make a satisfying life; a series of critical responses to literature, music, art and performance, from Hippolytus to Bill Henson to his previously unpublished libretti for Voss.
Reading these carefully curated works, it is easy to see the interpreter at work. In each, we see his talent for making the personal public and the public personal with his narrative voice exploring the boundaries between the two and the various points at which they overlap.
With ease, insight and candour, Malouf writes about Australia's varied and multicultural past, landscapes and people. With astute and considered reflections, he sets about challenging cultural myths, rejecting stereotype and cliche in favour of diversity. His descriptions, while specific, are not laboured or overly wordy. Rather, Malouf's signature poetic prose engages the reader and invites us into friendly, open-ended conversation.
David Malouf will be hosting a conversation accompanied by selected readings and signing at the Blue Mountains Theatre and Community Hub, 104 - 108 Macquarie Road, Springwood on Sunday, May 10 at 2pm. Tickets are available at the Turning Page Bookshop in Springwood $15 general, $10 concession. Bookings 4751 5171.
