AustLit logo
image of person or book cover 7160640271229580703.jpg
This image has been sourced from online.
y separately published work icon Ransom single work   novel  
  • Author:agent David Malouf http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/malouf-david
Issue Details: First known date: 2009... 2009 Ransom
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'With learning worn lightly and in his own lyrical language, David Malouf revisits Homer's Iliad. Focusing on the unbreakable bonds between men - Priam and Hector, Patroclus and Achilles, Priam and the cart-driver hired to retrieve Hector's body. Pride, grief, brutality, love and neighbourliness are explored.' (Publisher's blurb)

Exhibitions

Notes

  • 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

    • North Sydney, North Sydney - Lane Cove area, Sydney Northern Suburbs, Sydney, New South Wales,: Knopf Australia , 2009 .
      image of person or book cover 7160640271229580703.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 224p.
      ISBN: 9781741668377 (hbk.)
    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Chatto and Windus ,
      2009 .
      image of person or book cover 8038318109198591680.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 224p.
      ISBN: 0701184159 (hbk.), 9780701184155 (hbk.)
    • North Sydney, North Sydney - Lane Cove area, Sydney Northern Suburbs, Sydney, New South Wales,: Vintage Australia , 2010 .
      image of person or book cover 2776321520148416635.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 224p.
      ISBN: 9781741669657 (pbk.)
    • New York (City), New York (State),
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,
      :
      Pantheon Books ,
      2010 .
      image of person or book cover 9029757095232323432.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 224p.
      ISBN: 9780307378774 (hbk.), 0307378772
    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Vintage UK ,
      2010 .
      image of person or book cover 1016436927626080675.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 224p.
      ISBN: 9780099539520 (pbk.)
    • New York (City), New York (State),
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,
      :
      Vintage ,
      2011 .
      image of person or book cover 4119889274165533302.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 224p.
      ISBN: 0307475247 (pbk.), 9780307475244 (pbk.)
      Series: y separately published work icon Vintage International New York (City) : Vintage , 1993- 19532994 1993 series - publisher novel

      'William Faulkner, Philip Roth, Alice Munro, Thomas Mann, Doris Lessing, Albert Camus, V.S. Naipaul, Gabriel García Márquez, Salman Rushdie, Joan Didion, and Cormac McCarthy, among many others: Vintage International is devoted to publishing the best writing of the past century from the world over. Offering both classic and modern fiction and literary nonfiction in elegant editions, Vintage International aims to provide readers with world-class writing that has stood the test of time and essential works by the preeminent authors of today.'

      Source: Vintage.

    • Sydney, New South Wales,: Penguin Books , 2018 .
      image of person or book cover 4527434142977773796.jpg
      Cover image courtesy of publisher.
      Extent: 240 p.p.
      Note/s:
      • Published 19 March 2018.

      ISBN: 9780143790846 (pbk)
Alternative title: lo sono Achille
Language: Italian
    • Milan,
      c
      Italy,
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Frassinelli ,
      2010 .
      image of person or book cover 683712383433484184.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 217p.
      ISBN: 9788888320618

Other Formats

  • Sound recording.
  • Braille.
  • Large print.

Works about this Work

An Obsidian Mirror : David Malouf's Ransom A. S. Patrić , 2021 single work criticism
— Appears in: Reading Like an Australian Writer 2021;
The Limits of Devotion, or, Mortality in David Malouf's Ransom Chinmaya Lal Thakur , 2021 single work criticism
— Appears in: I’m Listening Like the Orange Tree : In Memory of Laurie Hergenhan 2021; (p. 101-110)
The 'Poem of Force' in Australia: David Malouf, Ransom and Chloe Hooper, The Tall Man Margaret Reynolds , 2016 single work criticism
— Appears in: Ancient Greek Myth in World Fiction Since 1989 2016; (p. 195-209)
y separately published work icon David Malouf's Ransom and Director Clint Eastwood's Invictus Claire Warr , Cheltenham : Insight Publications , 2016 10102807 2016 single work criticism
Austalgia : Our Homesickness for the Past Jim Chalmers , 2015 single work essay
— Appears in: Meanjin , Spring vol. 74 no. 3 2015; (p. 206-209)
Book of the Week Thornton McCamish , 2009 single work review
— Appears in: The Sunday Age , 29 March 2009; (p. 28)

— Review of Ransom David Malouf , 2009 single work novel
Or Wars, Kings, Fathers and Sons A. P. Riemer , 2009 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 28-29 March 2009; (p. 30)

— Review of Ransom David Malouf , 2009 single work novel
A King Simply Being a Man Rod Jones , 2009 single work review
— Appears in: The Age , 28 March 2009; (p. 24)

— Review of Ransom David Malouf , 2009 single work novel
Malouf the Master of Imaginary Lives Alberto Manguel , 2009 single work review
— Appears in: The Australian Literary Review , April vol. 4 no. 3 2009; (p. 9)

— Review of Ransom David Malouf , 2009 single work novel
Celebrating an Ancient Tale for the Ages Diane Stubbings , 2009 single work review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 4 April 2009; (p. 13)

— Review of Ransom David Malouf , 2009 single work novel
Is Malouf Playing Politics? Jason Steger , 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 Bron Sibree , 2009 single work column
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 21 March 2009; (p. 12)
The Logic of Dreams Miriam Cosic , 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 Peter Conrad , 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)
Last amended 20 Jan 2023 05:58:54
X