Child's Play

Description

'Like the dreams that regularly perturb their characters, the short novel and the two stories gathered here are intensely enigmatic' - Times Literary Supplement 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 his imagination, he is rehearsing for his greatest performance. Yet when his moment comes, nothing could have prepared him for what happens...

David Malouf is the internationally acclaimed author of novels including The Great World (winner of the Commonwealth Writers' prize and the Prix Femina Etranger), Remembering Babylon (shortlisted for the Booker Prize and winner of the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award), An Imaginary Life, Conversations at Curlow Creek and his autobiographical classic 12 Edmondstone Street. His Collected Stories won the 2008 Australia-Asia Literary Award, and his story collections are Dream Stuff and Every Move You Make where met with critical acclaim. His most recent novel is Ransom. In 2008 Malouf was the Scottish Arts' Council Muriel Spark International Fellow. Born in 1934 in Brisbane, he now lives in Sydney.

One of the most effective and penetrating studies of being a fanatic * Financial Times * Written with the beautiful claity and sharp edges of a cut crystal * Sunday Telegraph * Malouf is a lyrical story-writer, making music of long, clause-enriched sentences, yet one of his strengths is his ability to manage contrasts * Sydney Morning Herald *