An Imaginary Life (SIGNED)
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Edition: First Edition
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Worn/faded, no tears
Pages: Tanning and foxing
Markings: Signed
What happens when a man of words is stripped of his language, his culture, and his identity, and cast into the silent edges of the known world? An Imaginary Life by David Malouf answers this question through the eyes of Ovid — Rome's most celebrated and scandalous poet — exiled by Emperor Augustus to Tomis, a remote barbarian outpost on the Black Sea. There, far from the literary salons and marble grandeur of Rome, Ovid forges an extraordinary bond with a feral child raised by wolves, a wild boy who becomes both his mirror and his redemption, forcing him to confront the very nature of language, civilisation, and what it means to be truly human. Malouf's prose is spare yet incandescent, wielding mythic resonance with the precision of a poet — which is entirely fitting given Ovid's own mastery of verse. An Imaginary Life stands as one of the great works of Australian literature, a meditation on transformation, exile, and the boundaries between the self and the natural world that echoes Ovid's own Metamorphoses. Awarded the New South Wales Premier's Literary Award, this luminous novella leaves the reader questioning where the boundaries of civilisation truly end — and whether crossing them might be the most profound act of all.
Author: David Malouf
Format: Hardback
Published: 1978, Chatto & Windus
Genre: Modern fiction
Edition: First Edition
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Worn/faded, no tears
Pages: Tanning and foxing
Markings: Signed
What happens when a man of words is stripped of his language, his culture, and his identity, and cast into the silent edges of the known world? An Imaginary Life by David Malouf answers this question through the eyes of Ovid — Rome's most celebrated and scandalous poet — exiled by Emperor Augustus to Tomis, a remote barbarian outpost on the Black Sea. There, far from the literary salons and marble grandeur of Rome, Ovid forges an extraordinary bond with a feral child raised by wolves, a wild boy who becomes both his mirror and his redemption, forcing him to confront the very nature of language, civilisation, and what it means to be truly human. Malouf's prose is spare yet incandescent, wielding mythic resonance with the precision of a poet — which is entirely fitting given Ovid's own mastery of verse. An Imaginary Life stands as one of the great works of Australian literature, a meditation on transformation, exile, and the boundaries between the self and the natural world that echoes Ovid's own Metamorphoses. Awarded the New South Wales Premier's Literary Award, this luminous novella leaves the reader questioning where the boundaries of civilisation truly end — and whether crossing them might be the most profound act of all.