David Malouf

David Malouf—winner of the inaugural Australia-Asia Literary Award, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the Prix Femina Étranger and the Los Angeles Times Book Award—is the author of, among other works, Remembering Babylon, An Imaginary Life and The Conversations at Curlow Creek.

His new novel is Ransom.

From his Q & A with Anna Metcalfe at the Financial Times:

What book changed your life?

The Hunchback of Notre Dame, when I was 12. I was introduced to a world of passion, involvement and violence – all that a kid in a suburban environment doesn’t know exists.

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Who are your literary influences?

The people I admire most are the people I couldn’t possibly be like, such as Balzac and Dickens. Tolstoy has also influenced me because of his wonderful capacity to inhabit very different points of view in the same scene.

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What are you most proud of writing?

Imaginary Life. If you’re lucky as a writer you get one “gift” book where you break through into a different kind of writing. That was mine.

Read the complete interview.

--Marshal Zeringue