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y separately published work icon Child's Play single work   novella  
  • Author:agent David Malouf http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/malouf-david
Issue Details: First known date: 1981... 1981 Child's Play
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'In the streets of an ordinary Italian town, the people go about their everyday lives. In an old apartment block above them, a young man pores over photographs and plans, dedicated to his life's most important project. Day by day, in imagination, he is rehearsing for his greatest performance. Yet when his moment comes, nothing could have prepared him for what happens. . .' (Source: Publisher's website)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Child's Play / The Bread of Time to Come : Two Novellas David Malouf , New York (City) : George Braziller , 1981 Z59574 1981 selected work novella New York (City) : George Braziller , 1981 pg. 1-145
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Child's Play / Eustace / The Prowler David Malouf , London : Chatto and Windus , 1982 Z943371 1982 selected work novella short story London : Chatto and Windus , 1982 pg. 1-145
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Child's Play / Eustace / The Prowler David Malouf , London : Chatto and Windus , 1982 Z943371 1982 selected work novella short story Ringwood : Penguin , 1983 pg. 1-145
    • New York (City), New York (State),
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,
      :
      Vintage ,
      1999 .
      image of person or book cover 4683040711863401620.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online
      Extent: 145p.
      Edition info: 1st Vintage International ed.
      ISBN: 0375701419
      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.

Works about this Work

A Unique and Necessary Form David Malouf , 2018 single work essay
— Appears in: Westerly , November vol. 63 no. 2 2018; (p. 10-15)

'Story-telling, the pleasure of sitting in close company and listening to a story, allowing oneself to float free in the moment and enter, both in the senses and in imagination, into the story's events so that the story becomes our own, must be one of the oldest and earliest of our pleasures - a function of that uniquely human faculty in us, the capacity to step beyond the actual into the possible.' (Introduction)

Lords of Peace, Lords of War : the Master and the Terrorist in Child's Play by David Malouf Antonella Riem Natale , 2016 single work criticism
— Appears in: Le Simplegadi , April no. 15 2016; (p. 6-15)
This paper argues that the terrorist embodies a dominator paradigm, exalting and justifying violence, while the Master’s capacity to create through his narratives is attuned to a partnership paradigm. The terrorist’s paranoid, lucid, and terse first person narration of his meticulous (almost religious) preparations for the assassination is set against the intensely poetical creativity of the Master, underlining the beauty and poetry of life. This dialogue between two different modes of perceiving and filtering reality is built around the metaphor of children playing. In a willing suspension of disbelief, the Master, like a child, constructs his own reality in imagining worlds his readers share. The terrorist tries to imitate and mimic his Master, perfectly aware that he is unable to create like him. The actualisation of his long-imagined violence, which can only annihilate and destroy and is powerless, is his failed attempt at counterbalancing his lack of true creative and dialogic imagination.
David Malouf and the Poetics of Possibility Bill Ashcroft , 2014 single work criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 14 no. 2 2014;

'The essay addresses the poetic dimension of David Malouf's novels, suggesting that a poetics of possibility can be found in all his work. The poetics of possibility is a function both of Malouf’s thematic interest in the future and of his use of poetic language to draw the reader to imagine various kinds of ways of experiencing and knowing the world. The essay draws upon the philosophy of Ernst Bloch to illuminate the utopian dimension of Malouf’s work, whether in seeing the radiance of possibility in simple objects, the silent ‘presence’ at the centre of language, or the possibility of a different kind of future that Australian society might have experienced.' (Publication abstract)

Deixis Rediscovered Russell West-Pavlov , 2010 single work criticism
— Appears in: Spaces of Fiction/Fictions of Space : Postcolonial Place and Literary Deixis 2010; (p. 184-205)
Homoeroticism in David Malouf's Fiction Xavier Pons , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Messengers of Eros : Representations of Sex in Australian Writing 2009; (p. 271-292)

'David Malouf is hardly a gay icon. Although he has never kept his homosexuality a secret, neither has he flaunted it, either in his life or in his writings. Where the latter are concerned, there is no doubt that Malouf doesn't want to be pigeonholed, that he rejects restrictive levels that would do an injustice to his wide-ranging preoccupations and his considerable appeal to all manner of readers.' (p. 271)

Anarchic Worlds Beneath Marian Favel Clair Eldridge , 1982 single work review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 11 September 1982; (p. 12)

— Review of Child's Play David Malouf , 1981 single work novella
Diary of a Young Terrorist Helen Garner , 1982 single work review
— Appears in: The National Times , 4-10 July 1982; (p. 21)

— Review of Child's Play David Malouf , 1981 single work novella
Dung Heaps and Clammy Hands Katharine England , 1982 single work review
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 9 October 1982; (p. 23)

— Review of Child's Play David Malouf , 1981 single work novella
Flights of Imagination Laurie Clancy , 1982 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , September no. 44 1982; (p. 24-25)

— Review of Child's Play David Malouf , 1981 single work novella
Malouf's Lyrical World has Much Beauty and Much to Tease the Mind D. J. O'Hearn , 1982 single work review
— Appears in: The Age , 26 June 1982; (p. 15)

— Review of Child's Play David Malouf , 1981 single work novella
Interview with David Malouf David Malouf , Julie Anne Copeland (interviewer), 1982 single work interview
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , October vol. 10 no. 4 1982; (p. 429-436)
y separately published work icon Brightness under Our Shoes : The Redress of the Poetic Imagination in the Poetry and Prose of David Malouf, 1960-1982 Yvonne Smith , 2008 Z1604899 2008 single work thesis 'This study investigates the poetic foundation of David Malouf's poetry and prose published from 1960 to 1982. Its purpose is to extend reading strategies so that the nature of his poetic and its formative influence are more fully appreciated. Its thesis is that Malouf explores and tests with increasing confidence and daring a poetic imagination that he believes must meet the demands of the times. Malouf's work is placed in relation to Wallace Stevens' belief that the poetic imagination should "push back against the pressure of reality", a view discussed by Seamus Heaney in 'The Redress of Poetry'. Malouf's work shows the influence not only of Stevens but also Rilke and contemporary American poetry of "deep image". The Australian context of Malouf's work is considered in relation to Judith Wright's essay 'The Writer and the Crisis' and the poetry of Malouf's contemporaries. Details of the manuscript development of his first four novels show Malouf's steps towards a clearer representation of his holistic, post-romantic vision. His correspondence with the poet Judith Rodriguez provides useful insights into his purposes. Theories and research about brain functions, the nature of intelligence and learning provide an important international context in the 1960s and 1970s, given Malouf's interest in how meaning forms from perception and experience. The thesis offers a model of poetic learning that highlights the interplay of dialectically opposed ways of forming meaning and points to the importance for Malouf of holding diverse states of mind together through the poetic imaginary.' from Author's abstract http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/5139 sighted 14/7/2009
Homoeroticism in David Malouf's Fiction Xavier Pons , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Messengers of Eros : Representations of Sex in Australian Writing 2009; (p. 271-292)

'David Malouf is hardly a gay icon. Although he has never kept his homosexuality a secret, neither has he flaunted it, either in his life or in his writings. Where the latter are concerned, there is no doubt that Malouf doesn't want to be pigeonholed, that he rejects restrictive levels that would do an injustice to his wide-ranging preoccupations and his considerable appeal to all manner of readers.' (p. 271)

David Malouf's Fiction Peter Pierce , 1982 single work criticism
— Appears in: Meanjin , Summer vol. 41 no. 4 1982; (p. 526-534)
Discoveries and Transformations : Aspects of David Malouf's Work Laurie Hergenhan , 1984 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , May vol. 11 no. 3 1984; (p. 328-341)
Discusses Malouf's 'elusive' fiction in the context of his poetry, concentrating on the treatment of common developing concerns.
Last amended 11 Jun 2020 10:51:07
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