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  • Published: 1 October 2015
  • ISBN: 9780857984074
  • Imprint: Vintage Australia
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 352
  • RRP: $19.99

The Writing Life

from the award-winning author of Remembering Babylon




Who else, but a writer, is really able to interrogate the work of other writers? An exploration and vivid interpretation of the great writer’s who have shaped and inspired multi-award-winning David Malouf.

From Christina Stead, Les Murray and Patrick White to Proust, Shakespeare and Charlotte Bronte, David Malouf reads and examines the work of writers who have challenged, inspired and entertained us for generations.

He also explores his own work and the life of the writer, where the ever-present danger is spending too much time talking about writing and not enough doing it.

These alternative views of some of our best-loved writers and readers will send us scurrying back to read Jane Eyre, Kipling and of course, David Malouf.

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‘Elegant and sustained.’ ASHLEY HAY, THE AUSTRALIAN
'Illuminating.’ JAMES LEY, THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
‘Australia’s finest writer’ MIRIAM COSIC, THE AUSTRALIAN
‘Malouf is a lyrical story-writer.’ MALCOLM KNOX, THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
‘A first-rate writer-a sensitive historian of the spirit.’ WALL STREET JOURNAL

  • Published: 1 October 2015
  • ISBN: 9780857984074
  • Imprint: Vintage Australia
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 352
  • RRP: $19.99

Praise for The Writing Life

Best book of 2015.

Sonia Lee, Gleaner

An elegant and sustained examination of one question: what does it mean to be a writer? To read this book is to be inspired, and how could you not be when you read, now, with the sense of a benevolent and polymath reader, considered and considerate, just there, at your shoulder, to help you along? David Malouf is tops; he’s a boon to our myriad imaginary lives.

Ashley Hay, The Australian

Malouf posits a 'writing self' and a 'reading self', recognising them as distinct but complementary entities, and throught The Writing Life they are engaged in an illuminating conversation. His critical analysis includes autobiographical details, as if part of a work's significance is the effect it has had on him. Among Malouf's many writing identities - novelist, poet, memoirist, librettist - that of the literary critic might seem to be the least of his achievements, but The Writing Life demonstrates what an attentive and thoughtful reader he is. These essays not only offer interpretations of some of the great writers who have shaped Malouf's sensibility, they are themselves part of a literary 'process of discovery'.

James Ley, The Sydney Morning Herald