Encore: David Malouf on growing up in Brisbane and his life of letters
4/30/202649 min
Award-winning Australian author, poet and essayist David Malouf died last week at the age of 92, he spoke with Richard in 2014.
The first son of a Lebanese family, David spent his early years in South Brisbane, his vivid memories of life as it was then are captured in his classics, Johnno and 12 Edmondstone Street.
Although his father played representative rugby league and was a champion boxer, David pursued a life of letters and during his career he published numerous highly-awarded novels and collections of essays.
This episode was first broadcast in March 2014
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First 90 secondsSarah Kanowski· Host0:00
The great Australian writer, David Malouf, passed away last week. David's novels include Ransom, The Great World, Remembering Babylon, Johnno, and my favorite, An Imaginary Life. He also published collections of poetry and essays. David's preoccupations as a writer included Italy, where he had lived for many years, along with all the myths and the literature of the classical world. But he equally had a deep fascination and fondness for the disappeared childhood world of his hometown, Brisbane. I interviewed David many times, and he was always thoughtful and precise, and famously generous and encouraging to young writers. There was also a personal connection with David. My mum, Maureen, had known him at the University of Queensland back in the 1950s, and when any of her seven kids dialed David up for a chat after one of his readings, he would remember those years and her affectionately. David had moved back to Queensland, to the Gold Coast, in fact, a place which might seem very un-David Malouf when you think of his writing, but his apartment was full of his extraordinary collection of original artworks, and he'd sit high up and watch the ocean with a book of poetry on his lap. When I last visited with my kids, he served us black forest chocolate cake and walked with us down to the beach.