An Imaginary Life: A Novel - Hardcover

Malouf, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 080760884X ISBN 13: 9780807608845

Publisher: George Braziller, 1978

Synopsis

Ovid, exiled from Rome to the edge of the Black Sea, encounters a feral child, who teaches him the language of nature

About this title

From the Inside Flap

century A.D., Publius Ovidius Naso, the most urbane and irreverent poet of imperial Rome, was banished to a remote village on the edge of the Black Sea. From these sparse facts, Malouf has fashioned an audacious and supremely moving novel. Marooned on the edge of the known world, exiled from his native tongue, Ovid depends on the kindness of barbarians who impale their dead and converse with the spirit world.Then he becomes the guardian of a still more savage creature, a feral child who has grown up among deer. What ensues is a luminous encounter between civilization and nature, as enacted by a poet who once cataloged the treacheries of love and a boy who slowly learns how to give it.

"A work of unusual intelligence and imagination, full of surprising images and insights...One of those rare books you end up underlining and copying out into notebooks and reading out loud to friends."--The New York Times Book Review

From the Back Cover

In the first century A.D., Publius Ovidius Naso, the most urbane and irreverent poet of imperial Rome, was banished to a remote village on the edge of the Black Sea. From these sparse facts, one of our most distinguished novelists has fashioned an audacious and supremely moving work of fiction. Marooned on the edge of the known world, exiled from his native tongue, Ovid depends on the kindness of barbarians who impale their dead and converse with the spirit world. But then he becomes the guardian of a still more savage creature, a feral child who has grown up among deer. What ensues is a luminous encounter between civilization and nature, as enacted by a poet who once cataloged the treacheries of love and a boy who slowly learns how to give it.

Edition details

• Publisher: George Braziller
• Publication date: 1978
• ISBN 10: 080760884X
• ISBN 13: 9780807608845
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 154