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Notes
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A brief review by Alberto Manguel of the novel appears in the section 'Books of the Year', Times Literary Supplement, 27 November, 2009, p.13
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Sound recording.
- Braille.
Works about this Work
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The 'Poem of Force' in Australia: David Malouf, Ransom and Chloe Hooper, The Tall Man
2016
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Ancient Greek Myth in World Fiction Since 1989 2016; (p. 195-209) - y David Malouf's Ransom and Director Clint Eastwood's Invictus Cheltenham : Insight Publications , 2016 10102807 2016 single work criticism
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Austalgia : Our Homesickness for the Past
2015
single work
essay
— Appears in: Meanjin , Spring vol. 74 no. 3 2015; (p. 206-209) -
A World of Feeling : David Malouf and the Public Conversation
2014
single work
criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 14 no. 2 2014; 'This paper is concerned with David Malouf's role as a public intellectual, commenting on contemporary life and values. It considers how he has accrued cultural authority and how he has connected with a 'true public'. It draws on the work of Mark Kingwell and Stefan Collini to characterise Malouf's distinctive voice.' (Publication abstract) -
‘Only We Humans Can Know’ : David Malouf and War
2014
single work
criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 14 no. 2 2014;'In 'The Middle Parts of Fortune' (1929)—perhaps the best narrative of the Great War—Australian author Frederic Manning asserted that ‘there was nothing in war which was not in human nature’ (128). Eighty years after Manning, in 'Ransom' (2009), Malouf returns to the classical world to give us an emotive, complex consideration of the events which provide the basis for Western civilisation’s oldest surviving war narrative, 'The Iliad'.
''Ransom' is not Malouf’s first exploration of war, though it marks a movement into a mythic rather than a liberal, realist interpretation. Through 'Fly Away Peter' (1982) and 'The Great World' (1990), we can trace Malouf’s multilayered exploration of the place of war in both individual story and cultural history. In particular, Malouf explores the ways in which war is both shocking and ordinary, delivering a complex appreciation of this recurring aspect of human experience.' (Publication abstract)
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Book of the Week
2009
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sunday Age , 29 March 2009; (p. 28)
— Review of Ransom 2009 single work novel -
Or Wars, Kings, Fathers and Sons
2009
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 28-29 March 2009; (p. 30)
— Review of Ransom 2009 single work novel -
A King Simply Being a Man
2009
single work
review
— Appears in: The Age , 28 March 2009; (p. 24)
— Review of Ransom 2009 single work novel -
Malouf the Master of Imaginary Lives
2009
single work
review
— Appears in: The Australian Literary Review , April vol. 4 no. 3 2009; (p. 9)
— Review of Ransom 2009 single work novel -
Celebrating an Ancient Tale for the Ages
2009
single work
review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 4 April 2009; (p. 13)
— Review of Ransom 2009 single work novel -
Is Malouf Playing Politics?
2008
single work
column
— Appears in: The Age , 13 September 2008; (p. 29) A column canvassing current literary news including a brief report on the decision by David Malouf to publish his novel Ransom through Random House Australia rather than continue his previous practice of publishing his novels through Chatto and Windus, UK. Steger also comments briefly on Kimberley Freeman's win in the 2008 Romantic Book of the Year awards. -
Remembering Troy
2009
single work
column
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 21 March 2009; (p. 12) -
The Logic of Dreams
2009
single work
column
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 21-22 March 2009; (p. 8-9) -
Troy Revisited : Homer's Iliad and David Malouf's Ransom
2009
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Monthly , May no. 45 2009; (p. 48-53) The proposition is a simple as the first verse of Genesis, and marginally more believable: in the beginning, Homer invented literature. He did so - if, that is, he was a single person - dualistically, in two poems that look ahead to different literary futures. The Iliad is our primordial epic, celebrating heroic violence and the glory of combat. The Odyssey, which begins when the war in Troy is over and follows its wily, wayward protagonist on his journey home to Ithaca, begets the alternative genre of romance, a form not end-stopped by death like the epic but open to accident and adventure, free to go on exploring indefinitely. Writers ever since have added footnotes to Homer, whether cynically summarising the Trojan War as a lecherous farce, like Shakespeare in Troilus and Cressida, or cramming Odyseus's decade-long tour of the Mediterranean into a single day in Dublin, as Joyce did in Ulyssses. -
A Body of Work
Shannon Burns
(interviewer),
2009
single work
interview
— Appears in: The Adelaide Review , August no. 354 2009; (p. 8)
Awards
- 2011 shortlisted International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
- 2010 winner John D. Criticos Prize
- 2010 shortlisted Australian Booksellers Association Awards — Booksellers Choice Award
- 2010 shortlisted Prime Minister's Literary Awards — Fiction
- 2010 shortlisted Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) — Australian Book of the Year