The Complete Stories

Teacher Resource Essay

Publisher's synopsis

Thirty-one epic stories from Australia’s award-winning author David Malouf.

David Malouf’s imagination inhabits shocking violence, quick humor, appealing warmth and harsh cruelty with equal intensity. He shares tales of bookish boys, taciturn men and intimate stories of men and women looking for something they seem to have missed, or missed out on. This is a comprehensive compilation of David’s shorter work. Stories are set in the stark and challenging Australian interior and the more lush and mysterious coastal enclaves; others are set in Australia’s past. The youthful dreams, physical desires and mental despair of Malouf’s richly varied characters as they explore their place in the world are always moving and universal.

Readers won’t want to skim a single page of the 31 stories in this epic collection, a few of which are novella length. Together, they represent a quarter-century of a formidable craftsman’s career.

Other Recommended Titles

Bush Studies

Cafe Scheherazade

The Children’s Bach

True History of the Kelly Gang

David Malouf

David Malouf is the internationally acclaimed author of novels including Ransom, The Great World (winner of the Commonwealth Writers’ prize and the Prix Femina Etranger), Remembering Babylon (winner of the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award), An Imaginary Life, Conversations at Curlow Creek, Dream Stuff, Every Move You Make and his autobiographical classic 12 Edmondstone Street. His Collected Stories won the 2008 Australia-Asia Literary Award. His most recent books are A First Place and The Writing Life. He was born in 1934 and was brought up in Brisbane.

Photo by Conrad del Villar, courtesy of Penguin Random House

Complementary content

Books That Made Us ABC Education

“This collection from one of Australia’s best writers has the moral centre, grandeur and clarity of Alice Munro’s work – there is a sense of absolute truthfulness in the portrayal of his characters and vivid evocation of Australian landscape and culture. These are classic stories in the finest tradition.”

An ASA Council Member on why this book is in the Reading Australia First 200 list.

Further Details

Author David Malouf

Publisher Random House Australia

Date of Publication 2007

ISBN 9781741667417 (print)

Category Short Stories

SCIS number

5476706