David Malouf
David Malouf was born in Brisbane in 1934. His paternal family emigrated from Lebanon in the 1880s; his maternal family, of Spanish descent, arrived from England in 1913. He studied at Brisbane Grammar and then Queensland University before travelling to Europe and Britain. Malouf worked as a teacher in London and at Birkenhead, Cheshire, before returning to Australia in 1968, after which he taught at the University of Sydney.
Malouf's first published books were collections of poetry, "Interiors" in Four Poets (1962), Bicycle and Other Poems (1970) and Neighbours in a Thicket Poems (1974). Poets Kenneth Slessor and Wallace Stevens were both influential in Malouf finding his own poetic voice. His most recent poetry collection is Typewriter Music (2008). His first novel was the semi-autobiographical Johnno (1975). He is renowned for his lyrical style, and his explorations of identity, place and belonging.
Of course it's an honour and I’m grateful for the kind of attention that's being paid to the business of being a writer.
The highly regarded Malouf has been the recipient of a raft of literary awards, and short-listed on numerous occasions. He was awarded the NSW Premier's Literary Award in 1978 for An Imaginary Life, four years later winning the Age Book of the Year Award for Fly Away Peter. In 1991 Malouf won the Miles Franklin Award for The Great World, for which he was also rewarded the Commonwealth Prize for Fiction and the Prix Fémina Etranger in France. He was short-listed for the Booker in 1993 for his acclaimed Remembering Babylon, which went on to win the Los Angeles Times Fiction Prize, the NSW Premier's Award and the inaugural IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for 1996. Every Move You Make won the Age Book of the Year Fiction Prize and the Steele Rudd Award in 2007, and The Complete Stories was short-listed for the inaugural Australian Prime Minister's Literary Award and won the Australia-Asia Literary Award in Western Australia in 2008. In 2000, he received the Neustadt International Prize, awarded writers for the body of works created throughout their literary careers.
David Malouf also writes for performance. He wrote librettos for Patrick White's Voss and for Baa Baa Black Sheep, and in 1988 wrote the play Blood Relations.
In 1987 he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for his services to literature, and in 2001 received a Centenary medal for his services to Australian society as an author and in the study of English literature.
