An Imaginary Life

David Malouf

Apr 2019 · Bolinda · Narrated by Paul English

About this audiobook

In the first century AD, Publius Ovidius Naso, the most urbane and irreverant poet of imperial Rome, was banished to a remote village on the edge of the Black Sea. From these sparse facts, one of our most distinguished novelists has fashioned an audacious and supremely moving work of fiction. Marooned on the edge of the known world, exiled from his native tongue, Ovid depends on the kindness of barbarians who impate their dead and converse with the spirit world. But then he becomes the guardian of a still more savage creature, a feral child who has grown up among deer. What ensues is a luminous encounter between civilisation and nature, as enacted by a poet who once catalogued the treacheries of love and a boy who slowly learns how to give it.

About the author

David Malouf is one of Australia’s most celebrated writers. He is the author of poems, fiction, libretti and essays. In 1996, his novel Remembering Babylon was awarded the first International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. His 1998 Boyer Lectures were published as A Spirit of Play: The Making of Australian Consciousness. In 2000 he was selected as the sixteenth Neustadt Laureate. His most recent novel is Ransom.

Paul English is an actor and narrator based in Melbourne who has appeared in more than 40 productions with major Australian theatre companies. Some highlights include Shakespeare's Hamlet, Chekhov’s Ivanov and Stoppard's Arcadia. Paul's television credits include SeaChange, Curtin and Gallipoli. His narration of Mao's Last Dancer (2004) and Coming Rain (2017) have both won AudioFile Earphones Awards.