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An Imaginary Life
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Check link for latest rating. ( 2,616 ratings, 303 reviews)
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Format: Paperback / softback
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?
This book may appeal to you if you enjoy beautifully written stories that blend history with imaginative storytelling. It explores themes of identity, exile, and the natural world through a transformative narrative set in the Roman Empire, offering a reflective and poetic journey for the reader.
First-person story of the Roman poet Ovid's exile in the distant, frosty wastes. At the centre of the tale is Ovid's encounter with a wild boy, brought up among the deer in the snow.
'A brilliantly inventive novel... Malouf puts on a dazzling literary display in this arresting, original, lyrical work' Wall Street Journal
Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and
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Description
An Imaginary Life is described by the Wall Street Journal as "a brilliantly inventive novel... Malouf puts on a dazzling literary display in this arresting, original, lyrical work."
In the first century AD, Publius Ovidius Naso, the most urbane and irreverent 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 impale 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.
Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?
David Malouf's An Imaginary Life receives high praise for its imaginative narrative and elegant use of language. Critics highlight its haunting and hypnotic storytelling, focusing on the intricate details of Ovid's exile and his transformation in an alien landscape. The book is lauded for its exploration of human reality against a barbaric and unknowable backdrop, particularly through Ovid's encounter with a feral child.
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9780099273844
Publisher: Vintage Publishing
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 20 May 1999
Country: United Kingdom
Imprint: Vintage
Audience: General / adult
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 12.0mm
Width: 129.0mm
Height: 199.0mm
Weight: 131g
Pages: 176
About the Author
David Malouf is the internationally acclaimed author of novels including The Great World (winner of the Commonwealth Writers' prize and the Prix Femina Etranger), Remembering Babylon (shortlisted for the Booker Prize and winner of the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award), An Imaginary Life, Conversations at Curlow Creek, His most recent, Ransom, published in 2010, and his autobiographical classic 12 Edmondstone Street. His Collected Stories won the 2008 Australia-Asia Literary Award, and his recent story collections are Dream Stuff ('These stories are pearls' Spectator) and Every Move You Make ('Rare and luminous talent' Guardian). In 2008 Malouf was the Scottish Arts' Council Muriel Spark International Fellow. Born in 1934 in Brisbane, where he was brought up, he lives in Sydney.
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