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A First Place
A collection of personal essays and writing from David Malouf to celebrate his 80th birthday.
Topography, geography, history. Multiculturalism, referendums, the constitution and national occasions. Parental and grandparental romances, the sensual and bountiful beauty of Brisbane, the mysterious offerings of Queenslander homes, and leaving home. The idea of a nation and the heart of its people. Being Australian and Australia's relationship to the world. Putting ourselves on the map.
All these subjects, and more, are explored from the generous, questioning and original perspective of David Malouf.
At the heart of these pieces is the idea of home, where and what it is. What they illustrate is the formation of a man, an Australian and one of the best writers this country has produced.
Topography, geography, history. Multiculturalism, referendums, the constitution and national occasions. Parental and grandparental romances, the sensual and bountiful beauty of Brisbane, the mysterious offerings of Queenslander homes, and leaving home. The idea of a nation and the heart of its people. Being Australian and Australia's relationship to the world. Putting ourselves on the map.
All these subjects, and more, are explored from the generous, questioning and original perspective of David Malouf.
At the heart of these pieces is the idea of home, where and what it is. What they illustrate is the formation of a man, an Australian and one of the best writers this country has produced.
368 pages, Hardcover
First published March 3, 2014
6 people are currently reading
75 people want to read
About the author
David Malouf
85 books301 followersDavid Malouf is a celebrated Australian poet, novelist, librettist, playwright, and essayist whose work has garnered international acclaim. Known for his lyrical prose and explorations of identity, memory, and place, Malouf began his literary career in poetry before gaining recognition for his fiction. His 1990 novel The Great World won the Miles Franklin Award and several other major prizes, while Remembering Babylon (1993) earned a Booker Prize nomination and multiple international honors.
Malouf has taught at universities in Australia and the UK, delivered the prestigious Boyer Lectures, and written libretti for acclaimed operas. Born in Brisbane to a Lebanese father and a mother of Sephardi Jewish heritage, he draws on both Australian and European influences in his work. He is widely regarded as one of Australia's most important literary voices and has been recognized with numerous awards, including the Neustadt International Prize for Literature and the Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature.
Malouf has taught at universities in Australia and the UK, delivered the prestigious Boyer Lectures, and written libretti for acclaimed operas. Born in Brisbane to a Lebanese father and a mother of Sephardi Jewish heritage, he draws on both Australian and European influences in his work. He is widely regarded as one of Australia's most important literary voices and has been recognized with numerous awards, including the Neustadt International Prize for Literature and the Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
October 30, 2019
David Malouf's commitment to his fiction has left him little time – or, perhaps, need – for essays as a form. The Australian writer is now 85, and this fairly slim collection represents more or less his lifetime output of short nonfiction.
This has unexpected benefits, notably a dramatic foreshortening of timescale. We might jump twenty years from one essay to another. Ironically, this gives the collection an epic, state-of-the-nation feel, especially because Australia is the main subject under examination – from the psychic peculiarities of traditional Brisbane houses to the country's convict history to its odd relationship with England.
‘All meditations on history in Australia begin as geography lessons,’ Malouf suggests, and indeed his writing about the country is highly sensitive to its physical realities. These passages now read as more relevant that ever, since Australia, as he was pointing out in the 1980s, has in the past taken a cavalier attitude to its natural resources:
Reading through some of his more memoirish sections, you get a real sense of how dramatic Australia's recent boom has really been. Growing up in postwar Queensland, Malouf saw his surroundings as pinched, run-down, drab, essentially provincial, and it takes him a while to realise that this was a function of poverty, not of Australia per se (he writes about having a Proustian flashback during a visit to Dundee, Scotland in the 90s: ‘I was back in Brisbane in, say, 1941. The smells, the bodies and the faces of the people around me in the street…’).
Back then, as he points out, ‘olive oil was still a medicine and spaghetti came in tins. Eating out for most Australians was steak and chips at a Greek café if you were on the road, or the occasional visit to Chinatown’. For Malouf, nothing better symbolises Australia's conversion into a land of sunshine and holidays and beach-bronzed bodies than the foodie revolution. Australia suddenly realised it was a coastal civilisation, and adopted a Mediterranean café culture that now seems almost inseparable from some Aussie cities.
And God help you, by the way, if you assume Australia is anything less than sophisticated. Malouf, finding himself in a Perth suburb, makes the mistake of asking a waiter if they do an espresso.
It was particularly interesting reading his assessment of Australia's convict colonies, which, ever since reading The Fatal Shore, I have pictured as a kind of extended, inhuman hell on earth. Malouf (while reviewing Hughes's book) is much more sanguine when it comes to the outcomes, even going as far as to conclude that ‘transportation worked for most of these men and women’. It's a surprising line to take, but an interesting one to follow – you sense that it is related to Malouf's sense of affinity to some imagined British cultural continuity, which he summarises above all in terms of the English language:
These are ideas that I, too, have found inspiring in British culture, and that I think of as part of my intellectual inheritance – but they seem in pretty short supply in Britain at the moment, it has to be said. If that really was something that Britain passed to Australia, let's hope, via Malouf and others, they can find a way to kindly send it back again.
This has unexpected benefits, notably a dramatic foreshortening of timescale. We might jump twenty years from one essay to another. Ironically, this gives the collection an epic, state-of-the-nation feel, especially because Australia is the main subject under examination – from the psychic peculiarities of traditional Brisbane houses to the country's convict history to its odd relationship with England.
‘All meditations on history in Australia begin as geography lessons,’ Malouf suggests, and indeed his writing about the country is highly sensitive to its physical realities. These passages now read as more relevant that ever, since Australia, as he was pointing out in the 1980s, has in the past taken a cavalier attitude to its natural resources:
There is, and always has been, something rootless and irresponsible about our attitude to the land. We treat it, we go at things ‘as it there were no tomorrow’, using, wasting, making the most of everything while it lasts, stripping assets, taking the short view; as if we had no responsibility to those who might come after because we have no sense of what lies behind. We took the land, grabbed it by main force, so we miss the sense of its being a gift – something to be held in trust and passed on. Perhaps a deep awareness of history has less to do with the past than with a capacity to hold on hard to the future.
Reading through some of his more memoirish sections, you get a real sense of how dramatic Australia's recent boom has really been. Growing up in postwar Queensland, Malouf saw his surroundings as pinched, run-down, drab, essentially provincial, and it takes him a while to realise that this was a function of poverty, not of Australia per se (he writes about having a Proustian flashback during a visit to Dundee, Scotland in the 90s: ‘I was back in Brisbane in, say, 1941. The smells, the bodies and the faces of the people around me in the street…’).
Back then, as he points out, ‘olive oil was still a medicine and spaghetti came in tins. Eating out for most Australians was steak and chips at a Greek café if you were on the road, or the occasional visit to Chinatown’. For Malouf, nothing better symbolises Australia's conversion into a land of sunshine and holidays and beach-bronzed bodies than the foodie revolution. Australia suddenly realised it was a coastal civilisation, and adopted a Mediterranean café culture that now seems almost inseparable from some Aussie cities.
And God help you, by the way, if you assume Australia is anything less than sophisticated. Malouf, finding himself in a Perth suburb, makes the mistake of asking a waiter if they do an espresso.
There is just a flicker of pain in the blue-blue-eyes at this suggestion from an East Coaster that he might have washed up in some corner of Hicksville.
‘Ristretto, sir?’ he asks with a slight curl of the lip.
‘That'd be great,’ I say.
‘Coretto?’
Put thoroughly in my place, I tell him meekly, ‘I don't think we need to go that far.’
It was particularly interesting reading his assessment of Australia's convict colonies, which, ever since reading The Fatal Shore, I have pictured as a kind of extended, inhuman hell on earth. Malouf (while reviewing Hughes's book) is much more sanguine when it comes to the outcomes, even going as far as to conclude that ‘transportation worked for most of these men and women’. It's a surprising line to take, but an interesting one to follow – you sense that it is related to Malouf's sense of affinity to some imagined British cultural continuity, which he summarises above all in terms of the English language:
There is that ‘habit of mind’ we think of as being essentially and uniquely Anglo-Saxon: one that prefers to argue from example and practice rather than principle; that is happy, in a pragmatic way, to be in doubt as to why something works so long as it does work; is flexible, experimental, adaptive, and scornful of all those traps it sees in theory and principles. […] The language itself was to be disarmed. Irony would replace invective; good-humour, a middle tone, balance of syntactical structure, would ensure the proper weighing of pros and cons that would make extremist views so crass and undisciplined, so ungentlemanly, as to have no place in polite society. Moderate language would produce moderation.
These are ideas that I, too, have found inspiring in British culture, and that I think of as part of my intellectual inheritance – but they seem in pretty short supply in Britain at the moment, it has to be said. If that really was something that Britain passed to Australia, let's hope, via Malouf and others, they can find a way to kindly send it back again.
July 15, 2025
uma leitura enriquecedora de um volume ensaios sobre a Austrália e seus territórios, escrito por um dos mais importantes escritores australianos contemporâneos. aprendi bastante com esta leitura, em especial em temáticas relacionadas com a história deste país.
July 28, 2014
This is a strange grab bag of Malouf's non-fiction writing, released to mark his 80th birthday. Some of the pieces are slight, and the core material is really his Boyer lectures and his Quarterly Essay, both of which dwell on the history and character of Australia. Malouf is a thoughtful, exacting writer, combining lyrical, personal touches with incisive history and reasonably clear arguments, but the essays themselves had a consistent flaw. Malouf has a kind of rosy view of Australia and its British heritage that, while acknowledging the suffering of Indigenous people and the challenges faced by migrants, focusses more strongly on a kind of universal 'Australian experience'. This rosiness extended to the modern day, where sections of his lectures (from the late 90s) feel completely outdated in light of the bitter and ongoing arguments about the dreadful treatment of refugees.
Still, Malouf's writing on Australian history is fascinating and his personal reflections of the 1940s, 50s and 60s (particularly on the Brisbane of this era) are wonderful. There's a lot to enjoy here, but if you're anything like me, you'll find yourself dipping in and out rather than being entirely swept along.
Still, Malouf's writing on Australian history is fascinating and his personal reflections of the 1940s, 50s and 60s (particularly on the Brisbane of this era) are wonderful. There's a lot to enjoy here, but if you're anything like me, you'll find yourself dipping in and out rather than being entirely swept along.
August 25, 2025
3.5
a fascinating collection of essays and articles that piqued my curiosity and got me thinking about life in Australia in a very 'Maloufian' way. meditations on how geography, climate, and design shape our childhood and imprint on our psyche - this was very much aligned with some of the ideas in 'Earth Hour'. meandering explorations of Australian history and politics, our colonial past and how this has impacted our national identity and continues to do so. a pragmatic and yet extremely thoughtful analysis of our changing relationship with the British; Malouf claims that the unique circumstances which led to the creation of our nation - the great Australian 'experiment' - and our tendency towards openness, adaptiveness, and experiential practicality provides a great opportunity for Australia to continue building and defining itself as a positive and meaningful force into the future.
Malouf's love for the nation is on full display - part of the reason i read this is because i feel as though many Australians, especially young people, have a pretty loose sense of what it means to be Australian. i believe this is partly because of the fact that we are a nation almost entirely made up of immigrants; in a globalised 'information age' we also outsource a lot of culture from places such as the United States, and young people may feel like they connect more to 'internet culture' rather than 'Australian culture'. Malouf does a fantastic job of 'storying' Australia and its major cities (he focuses on Brisbane and Sydney), and mythologising being Australian - and he gets it right again and again; some of the things asserted ring more true today than they would have at the time of his writing. His knowledge in everything from music to cuisine to queer culture to literature to architecture to indigenous land management to sport to religion to geopolitics is truly a testament to his love for the nation, and the depth that we should all be thinking about the world and our place in it. however, this depth, and the 'essay-collection' form, means that there is a bit of repetition of ideas towards the back quarter of the book.
Malouf writes in long and running sentences, often drawing in multiple ideas simultaneously, usually to great success; there was only a handful of times when i was caught out by this style. Like his poetry, the writing is greatly lyrical, making it pleasant and easy to read.
i also just have to say that his reflection on our Mardi Gras parade in "A Spirit of Play" made me cry, probably all the more for me having experienced it first hand this year for the first time. also literally just found out that Malouf is a gay man and so i am not surprised i connect with his writing and the things he cares about so much.
here are some of my thoughts on a couple of the titles (copied from my notes app):
"Putting Ourselves on the Map"
- Australia and its inherent space orientation, how we are defined by our geography
- We only have our modern history in which nothing dramatic occurs
- Malouf contemplates our history much in the same way I do: looking out an airplane window at the patterns of cultivation below, trying to imagine what circular key would have looked like before we got here, trying to wrap my head around that what I am seeing is only 200 years
- We are an agricultural nation but our practices have no roots in the land itself. It is this “deep irony” which I wrote about for my 1240 midterm assessment
- This quote: “as if we had no responsibility to those who might come after because we have no sense of what lies behind” - we need to acknowledge this land for what it is, and the deep history it shares with our indigenous people if we are to make any meaningful changes in the face of climate change
- Rootlessness: anxiety around how we define ourselves, especially considering our rapidly increasing migrant population
- Our strange positioning in the global south while we are so connected to the foreign affairs of the great powers in the north (the US and the mother country UK), our fear of being ‘left out’ almost instead of carving out our own meaningful relations with our neighbours (something to be said for our foreign relations…)
- Uluru as the heart of Australia; a fixed centre; magnetic; the “navel of our consciousness”
- Interesting exercise in imagining how other nations would have adapted to colonising the land eg would Russians have done better with the interiors and endless horizons
- Comment on Australia’s common law inheritance and our unquestioning of the way things are (I love this shit - didn’t know Malouf knew legal theory)
- Acknowledging that Jan 26 is a day too filled with sorrow and shame for some, and that our nation is made up of so much more than this, and everyday is a celebration of that. What a beautiful take and we still haven’t done anything about that stupid date!
"The Eighties: A Learning Experience"
- A lyrical article looking back at the end of the decade. What is the nature of history, what are the ways in which we sanitise the lived experience of those who came before us, reducing real events to mere spectacle or theatre.
- Loved the inclusion of words that had little or no meaning before the 80s and thinking about what those words might be for the 2020s. Everything is so magnified and globalised these days because of social media.
- Interesting take on AIDs and the way it showed our global vulnerability and connection to one another - very notable to think about in the context of covid.
- Malouf acknowledges the “shifts in consciousness” that occurred in the 80s. In 1992, political scientist Francis Fukuyama announced that history as we knew it was coming to an end. Malouf considers the end of the Cold War and communism as well as the shift in global power towards the US. What followed was the predominance of liberal democracies and capitalism. I feel as though we are on the precipice of another one of these shifts in consciousness that may see the collapse of the US empire and the dismantling of existing societal ways of being. But as Malouf says, we can only try to predict this “tumbling down” of whole worlds and systems
- The meditation on the moon landing was beautiful, how the images of our earth from above represented an evolution of our awareness to one of a ‘global’ species, necessary for the survival of the planet itself. We still forget this in 2025
picked up at the rotary booksale ages ago
a fascinating collection of essays and articles that piqued my curiosity and got me thinking about life in Australia in a very 'Maloufian' way. meditations on how geography, climate, and design shape our childhood and imprint on our psyche - this was very much aligned with some of the ideas in 'Earth Hour'. meandering explorations of Australian history and politics, our colonial past and how this has impacted our national identity and continues to do so. a pragmatic and yet extremely thoughtful analysis of our changing relationship with the British; Malouf claims that the unique circumstances which led to the creation of our nation - the great Australian 'experiment' - and our tendency towards openness, adaptiveness, and experiential practicality provides a great opportunity for Australia to continue building and defining itself as a positive and meaningful force into the future.
Malouf's love for the nation is on full display - part of the reason i read this is because i feel as though many Australians, especially young people, have a pretty loose sense of what it means to be Australian. i believe this is partly because of the fact that we are a nation almost entirely made up of immigrants; in a globalised 'information age' we also outsource a lot of culture from places such as the United States, and young people may feel like they connect more to 'internet culture' rather than 'Australian culture'. Malouf does a fantastic job of 'storying' Australia and its major cities (he focuses on Brisbane and Sydney), and mythologising being Australian - and he gets it right again and again; some of the things asserted ring more true today than they would have at the time of his writing. His knowledge in everything from music to cuisine to queer culture to literature to architecture to indigenous land management to sport to religion to geopolitics is truly a testament to his love for the nation, and the depth that we should all be thinking about the world and our place in it. however, this depth, and the 'essay-collection' form, means that there is a bit of repetition of ideas towards the back quarter of the book.
Malouf writes in long and running sentences, often drawing in multiple ideas simultaneously, usually to great success; there was only a handful of times when i was caught out by this style. Like his poetry, the writing is greatly lyrical, making it pleasant and easy to read.
i also just have to say that his reflection on our Mardi Gras parade in "A Spirit of Play" made me cry, probably all the more for me having experienced it first hand this year for the first time. also literally just found out that Malouf is a gay man and so i am not surprised i connect with his writing and the things he cares about so much.
here are some of my thoughts on a couple of the titles (copied from my notes app):
"Putting Ourselves on the Map"
- Australia and its inherent space orientation, how we are defined by our geography
- We only have our modern history in which nothing dramatic occurs
- Malouf contemplates our history much in the same way I do: looking out an airplane window at the patterns of cultivation below, trying to imagine what circular key would have looked like before we got here, trying to wrap my head around that what I am seeing is only 200 years
- We are an agricultural nation but our practices have no roots in the land itself. It is this “deep irony” which I wrote about for my 1240 midterm assessment
- This quote: “as if we had no responsibility to those who might come after because we have no sense of what lies behind” - we need to acknowledge this land for what it is, and the deep history it shares with our indigenous people if we are to make any meaningful changes in the face of climate change
- Rootlessness: anxiety around how we define ourselves, especially considering our rapidly increasing migrant population
- Our strange positioning in the global south while we are so connected to the foreign affairs of the great powers in the north (the US and the mother country UK), our fear of being ‘left out’ almost instead of carving out our own meaningful relations with our neighbours (something to be said for our foreign relations…)
- Uluru as the heart of Australia; a fixed centre; magnetic; the “navel of our consciousness”
- Interesting exercise in imagining how other nations would have adapted to colonising the land eg would Russians have done better with the interiors and endless horizons
- Comment on Australia’s common law inheritance and our unquestioning of the way things are (I love this shit - didn’t know Malouf knew legal theory)
- Acknowledging that Jan 26 is a day too filled with sorrow and shame for some, and that our nation is made up of so much more than this, and everyday is a celebration of that. What a beautiful take and we still haven’t done anything about that stupid date!
"The Eighties: A Learning Experience"
- A lyrical article looking back at the end of the decade. What is the nature of history, what are the ways in which we sanitise the lived experience of those who came before us, reducing real events to mere spectacle or theatre.
- Loved the inclusion of words that had little or no meaning before the 80s and thinking about what those words might be for the 2020s. Everything is so magnified and globalised these days because of social media.
- Interesting take on AIDs and the way it showed our global vulnerability and connection to one another - very notable to think about in the context of covid.
- Malouf acknowledges the “shifts in consciousness” that occurred in the 80s. In 1992, political scientist Francis Fukuyama announced that history as we knew it was coming to an end. Malouf considers the end of the Cold War and communism as well as the shift in global power towards the US. What followed was the predominance of liberal democracies and capitalism. I feel as though we are on the precipice of another one of these shifts in consciousness that may see the collapse of the US empire and the dismantling of existing societal ways of being. But as Malouf says, we can only try to predict this “tumbling down” of whole worlds and systems
- The meditation on the moon landing was beautiful, how the images of our earth from above represented an evolution of our awareness to one of a ‘global’ species, necessary for the survival of the planet itself. We still forget this in 2025
picked up at the rotary booksale ages ago
June 30, 2025
David Malouf is a very insightful writer and this collection shows this about his life and Australia.Well worth a read
October 2, 2016
Totally fell in love with the book. I have never before read a non-fiction which is so lyrical and beautiful. I am so happy that I read this book while living in Brisbane because it allowed a depth to my experience of Brisbane. The Brisbane-born writer made me aware of the nuances offered by Brisbane in comparison to other states in Australia. The book presents a kaleidoscope of past memories including the First Fleet and present moments such as the dwindling number of veterans in the marches on the Anzac Day.
Two of my personal favorites are: first, the essay where the writer talks about the idea of a province; and second, when he discusses the typography of Brisbane.
Two of my personal favorites are: first, the essay where the writer talks about the idea of a province; and second, when he discusses the typography of Brisbane.
July 1, 2020
This is a collection of Malouf's non-fiction writing, released to mark his 80th birthday. He makes reference in some pieces to his fiction work and there are many shades of his Brisbane stories in particular, with reflection always told with that signature Malouf lyricism. But his writing on Australian history is also interesting and accessible.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews