Remembering Babylon
by David Malouf
List Price: $10.00
Pages: 208
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 0679749519
Publisher: Vintage
David Malouf has written that he was "born and grew up in Edwardian England,
a fact that has somehow got itself recorded in the real world as Brisbane,
Australia, in 1934." The son of a Lebanese Christian and an English Jew
of Portuguese descent, he came of age at a time when Australia patterned
itself entirely on English lines: "I lived on the beach, surfing, swimming,
active, in a place with a particular kind of light, a particular kind
of moisture in the air, a particular sky. Everything local belonged to
the sensory world. But everything cultural was English. Until 20 or 30
years ago everyone was still referring to England as 'home.'" That paradox
has preoccupied much of Malouf's fiction, which in turn has inspired two
generations of Australian writers.
Known as a poet and librettist
as well as a novelist, Malouf is the author of 14 books, including An
Imaginary Life, Fly Away Peter, Harland's Half Acre,
Antipodes, and the international bestseller The Great World.
His work has been awarded the Pascall Prize, the Miles Franklin Award,
the Age Book of the Year Award, the New South Wales and Victorian Premier's
Award in Australia, along with the Commonwealth Prize and France's Prix
Femina Etranger. Remembering Babylon was nominated for the 1993
Booker Prize. David Malouf lives in Brisbane, Australia.
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