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Remembering Babylon

David Malouf

3.49 · Rating details · 2,734 ratings · 242 reviews

Winner of the IMPAC Award and Booker Prize nominee

In this rich and compelling novel, written in language of astonishing poise and resonance, one of Australia's greatest living writers gives and immensely powerful vision of human differences and eternal divisions. In the mid-1840s a thirteen-year-old British cabin boy, Gemmy Fairley, is cast ashore in the far north of ...more

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Paperback, 200 pages

Published October 4th 1994 by Vintage (first published 1993)

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May 27, 2015 Vit Babenco rated it it was amazing

Somewhere, deep down inside, in everybody is hidden a memory of Babel, when all the nations were one.
So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth. Genesis 11:8-9
By confounding language and destroying the tower God had sown enmity among ...more

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Jan 17, 2016 PattyMacDotComma rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favourites-adult, chcc-library, australian-author, historical-fiction, award-win-listed

UPDATE: I just read an article about David Malouf and the poetry of his prose, and it reminded me how much I loved this book.
5★
This book is impossible to categorise. It is certainly historical fictionmid-nineteenth century settingbut its more a study than a story. The language is so rich and poetic, that I just wanted to read and enjoy every phrase.

When the British colonists (un)settled Australia, it was considered Terra Nullius, belonging to no one. A Scottish mother thinks,

It was the fearful ...more

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Jul 28, 2014 Mary rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction, australian-author, 2015

Til they arrived no other lives had been lived here. It made the air that much thinner, harder to breathe. She had not understood, til she came to a place where it was lacking, the extent to which her sense of the world had to do with the presence of those who had been there before, leaving signs of their passing and spaces still warm with breath a threshold worn with the coming and going of feet, hedges between fields that went back a thousand years, and the names even further, most of all, ’Til they arrived no other lives had been lived here. It made the air that much thinner, harder to breathe. She had not understood, ‘til she came to a place where it was lacking, the extent to which her sense of the world had to do with the presence of those who had been there before, leaving signs of their passing and spaces still warm with breath – a threshold worn with the coming and going of feet, hedges between fields that went back a thousand years, and the names even further, most of all, the names on headstones, which were their names, under which lay the bones that had made their bones and given them breath.

They would be the first dead here. It made death that much lonelier, and life lonelier too.

This is a novel of exile, both voluntary and involuntary. We’re dropped into mid-19th century colonial Australia, in a far-north outpost where European immigrants struggle to make a life out of the dust and rural isolation of their new land. They fear and misunderstand the native people, and both the immigrants and the aboriginals struggle with displacement. Gemmy, a white man raised by aboriginals for 16 years, becomes symbolism personified, neither here nor there, and for those of us who are immigrants ourselves the constant awkwardness was so brilliantly portrayed. Reverse culture shock was the most disorientating feeling I’ve ever experienced: that deeply lonely sense of being a two headed alien in your home country, and yet, still an outsider in your new one – Malouf nailed it. Both from Gemmy’s perspective, and from the Scottish immigrants who both long for home and struggle to put on a strong front and brave the elements. Identity is so deeply rooted in where we’re from and our early memories, and Thomas Wolfe was onto something when he said You Can’t Go Home Again.

The writing, quite simply, was beautiful. Lush, dreamy, emotional, and highly descriptive. Yet, this wasn’t a perfect book - mysterious characters disappeared when I wanted more of them, such as George the tortured schoolteacher, and Leona the “exotic” woman, and the ending felt a little rushed (“fast forward 50 years and this happened”), but it was a great introduction to Malouf’s work, and a dignified comment on culture, identity, and the beginnings of nationhood. ...more

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Aug 01, 2010 Joselito Honestly and Brilliantly rated it it was amazing

Warning: this is a beautiful review, but I want to alert the reader that reading it will ruin the plot and the process of suspense and mystery. I've given away too much but you'll love reading it when you have finished the book.

***********************************************

What is love?

I never thought an introductory query like this can be proper for a review of this novel with a Tarzan-like principal protagonist.

Sometime in the mid-19th century a young British boy named Gemmy Fairway, with ...more

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Nov 06, 2013 Eleanor rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2013-books, literary-fiction, historical-fiction, 2015-books, book-club

I thought this was a wonderful book - a poetic meditation on the power of language, fear, acceptance of difference and differing ways of looking at the world. It is beautiful and heart-breaking.

A 13 year old boy, put overboard because the crew fears that his illness is contagious, is taken in by Aborigines and learns their language and their way of being in the world. Sixteen years later he decides to join newly arrived white settlers. Instead of being welcomed, he is treated with great I thought this was a wonderful book - a poetic meditation on the power of language, fear, acceptance of difference and differing ways of looking at the world. It is beautiful and heart-breaking.

A 13 year old boy, put overboard because the crew fears that his illness is contagious, is taken in by Aborigines and learns their language and their way of being in the world. Sixteen years later he decides to join newly arrived white settlers. Instead of being welcomed, he is treated with great suspicion and fear by many in the group. He finds an unbridgeable gulf between most of them and himself, seen as a "white blackfeller".

(Pages 64-65) "But it was the other lot, those who were looking for the soft way, who gave him trouble. They could not understand why he was holding out on them. They were the peaceable ones, the ones who wanted to avoid bloodshed, couldn't he see that? Couldn't he tell the difference? Urgency made them desperate. They shouted at him, and then at one another.

And in fact a good deal of what they were after he could not have told, even if he had wanted to, for the simple reason that there were no words for it in their tongue; yet when, as sometimes happened, he fell back on the native word, the only one that could express it, their eyes went hard, as if the mere existence of a language they did not know was a provocation, a way of making them helpless. He did not intend it that way, but he too saw that it might be true. There was no way of existing in this land, or of making your way through it, unless you took into yourself, discovered on your breath, the sounds that linked up all the various parts of it and made them one. Without that you were blind, you were deaf, as he had been, at first, in their world. You blundered about seeing holes where in fact strong spirits were at work that had to be placated, and if you knew how to call them up, could be helpful. Half of what ought to have been bright and full of the breath of life to you was shrouded in mist."

A very interesting contrast to "The Secret River" by Kate Grenville.

Previously read November 2013 ...more

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Feb 25, 2014 Connie G rated it really liked it

Shelves: historical-fiction, australia

In the Australian bush, in the mid-19th Century, a small community of families from Scotland and England have set up homes. The settlers are surprised when a "black white man" appears at a farm at the edge of the bush. He is Gemmy Fairley who had been cast off a British ship near the northern shore of Australia at age 13. He was found by the aborigines and lived with them for 16 years. He only remembers a few words of English, and seems neither English nor aborigine. His childhood in England had In the Australian bush, in the mid-19th Century, a small community of families from Scotland and England have set up homes. The settlers are surprised when a "black white man" appears at a farm at the edge of the bush. He is Gemmy Fairley who had been cast off a British ship near the northern shore of Australia at age 13. He was found by the aborigines and lived with them for 16 years. He only remembers a few words of English, and seems neither English nor aborigine. His childhood in England had been the horrific life of a street urchin before he went off to sea. Gemmy was taken in by the McIvor family, but does not feel truly part of either culture--European or aborigine. Some of the settlers fear the black aborigines, and do not trust Gemmy.

Told from the point of view of many of the colonials, the virtues, flaws, fears, and opinions of the people are shown. For example, the minister loves botany and values Gemmy as a resource for identifying edible plants used by the aborigines. The isolated group of settlers were the first Europeans to live in that part of Australia, and they had to cope with many unknowns. But some neighbors are so terrified that the aborigines will attack their families that the men attack the timid Gemmy in the middle of the night. Fortunately, the eccentric Mrs Hutchence extends kindness to all, including Gemmy.

The adjustment to a different land where they had no history, the loneliness, and the isolation was difficult for the settlers. The Scottish Mrs McIvor thought, "It was the fearful loneliness of the place that most affected her--the absence of ghosts....She had not understood, till she came to a place where it was lacking, the extent to which her sense of the world had to do with the presence of those who had been there before, leaving signs of their passing and spaces still warm with breath--a threshold worn with the coming and going of feet, hedges between fields that went back a thousand years, and the names even further..."

Neither the aborigines nor the colonials understood the others' culture. Gemmy was white, but his experiences gave him the skills to live in the bush and to communicate with the aboriginal tribe. The settlers had the fear of the unknown in a new land, and many expressed racial and cultural intolerance. The book has an interesting title, "Remembering Babylon". The Old Testament has many references to Babylon. One reference is to the Hebrews in exile in Babylon, away from their homeland in Zion. Another reference is about the confusion and inability to communicate as people spoke in different tongues during the construction of the Tower of Babel. Both Bible stories would seem to fit the themes of the book. ...more

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Jul 31, 2015 Stef Rozitis rated it really liked it

Shelves: historical, australian, 1991-2000, environment

Back when I was a young and stupid undergrad I was forced to read this (probably meaning I read the first paragraph, the last paragraph, some random pages and took notes in the lecture). It was completely wasted on me back then! To the ignorant it seemed like quite a boring story where everyone hates each other and there is no happy ending, people just get older, go missing or whatever. Everyone seemed depressed and depressing (although even back then I did like Janet and the bees and kind of Back when I was a young and stupid undergrad I was forced to read this (probably meaning I read the first paragraph, the last paragraph, some random pages and took notes in the lecture). It was completely wasted on me back then! To the ignorant it seemed like quite a boring story where everyone hates each other and there is no happy ending, people just get older, go missing or whatever. Everyone seemed depressed and depressing (although even back then I did like Janet and the bees and kind of liked Leona too)

Rereading at age 40, I read a book I had not read before (much as some of the passages were familiar). In the interim I have become interested in sociology and social constructivism- the way people's identities are both their own choice AND constituted and limited by their relationships and context in place/time. The book looks at this glorious mess of identity in a complexly detailed mosaic of class, race, gender, age, family ties, use of (and relationship to) the land and dispossession. Gemmy is the clearest example, the character who has too many conflicting identities but somehow humbly navigates all of them.

But Janet was to me very interesting, especially in reference to Lachlan. Their relationship evolved in a way I completely didn't expect! (I don;t think that is a spoiler) and the young school teacher, George- not to mention Jock. Every character was a complex web of motivations, family background, emotional baggage, unrealised dreams, fears, social relationships, romantic involvements, pragmatism, race, class and gender. Desire in the book is dark and complex, and relationships are with the land and nature as well as with humans (but this is not romanticised or at least not too much)

If you want a feel good, straight forward story with a simple plot and a happy ending (as I used to) then don't even pick up this one. If you want to be challenged in your assumptions and think about what is the nature of human life, society and identity - especially exploring this from a critical post-colonial perspective then dive right into this bitter-sweet treat. (Please note it doesn't have long words and isn't all that hard to understand. I was personally just stupid when I was young) ...more

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Jun 17, 2017 Robert Case rated it liked it

Shelves: fiction

During the 1850's in Australia's Queensland frontier, three distinguished characters meet and indelibly impact each other's lives. All are transplants from the UK. Janet and Lachan are the children of settlers. The third is a description defying misfit named Gemmy; a young man whose adult years have been spent living with a tribe of native Aborigines after being cast away from a British sailing ship. He is completely acculturated into the indigenous ways, barely able to converse with a few words During the 1850's in Australia's Queensland frontier, three distinguished characters meet and indelibly impact each other's lives. All are transplants from the UK. Janet and Lachan are the children of settlers. The third is a description defying misfit named Gemmy; a young man whose adult years have been spent living with a tribe of native Aborigines after being cast away from a British sailing ship. He is completely acculturated into the indigenous ways, barely able to converse with a few words of English.

The story is written in the third person by a narrator with limited omniscience, one that shifts from character to character with each chapter. Using this technique, the author skillfully develops complex relationships between his characters, as they act out their ambitions, intentions, and fears. Early on, Gemmy enjoys a secure, albeit undefined role in the community, living with a respected family. Within the boundaries of their homestead and through intuition and feelings, Gemmy develops relationships with each family member. Outside of their homestead and after the initial curiosity subsides, currents of fear and distrust arise. They quickly intensify and the story unfolds.

Right up until chapter 19 ends and 20 begins. At that point the author abandons this frontier community on the edge of outer darkness and declares that World War I is underway. Somehow, seventy years have passed. The reader is reintroduced to Janet, now/known/as Sister Monica, bee expert of international reputation and member of a cloistered convent. Hers is a life of devotion, beauty, and purpose. Lachan on the other hand, has become a high-ranking government official, grieving over the loss of his wife and their only son in the European war. Through Lachan and Janet’s conversation, the author attempts to resolve the reader’s curiosity and explain whatever became of Gemmy and some of the lesser characters. This final chapter is abrupt, short, and unsatisfying. It seemed to this reader, a cheap technique to end an otherwise gripping story. ...more

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Jan 07, 2012 Yvann S rated it did not like it

"Strange how unimportant eyebrows can be, as long as there are two of them"

In David Malouf's IMPAC-winning novel (novelette? 182 pages), a group of children in 1840s Queensland happen across a young man, unkempt and racially white, but exhibiting behaviour they and their community expect of the local Aborigines. The community is changed forever by Gemmy's arrival.

I don't understand how this won the IMPAC and was shortlisted for the Booker. It's So Incredibly Uninteresting. I couldn't bring ...more

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Jan 03, 2014 Cherie rated it liked it

I liked the book, but I was very disappointed at the end. I chose to read this book because I was hoping it would give me an inside story about the Aborigines from a white man who had lived with them. Was I wrong!

I knew it was a story of a young white man (Gemmy Fairley) who had lived with the Aborigines or blacks as they were called, for 16 years. He was 10 or 12 when he was found on the shore, more dead than alive. They tended to him allowed him to live with them.

He had been with them, I liked the book, but I was very disappointed at the end. I chose to read this book because I was hoping it would give me an inside story about the Aborigines from a white man who had lived with them. Was I wrong!

I knew it was a story of a young white man (Gemmy Fairley) who had lived with the Aborigines or blacks as they were called, for 16 years. He was 10 or 12 when he was found on the shore, more dead than alive. They tended to him allowed him to live with them.

“He had been with them, quite happily it appeared, for more than half his life: living off the land, learning their lingo and all their secrets, all the abominations they went in for.”
He had some kind of mental handicap that was really never explained. He stuttered and had nightmares. He hopped around and played the fool most of the time.

“He was a parody of a white man. If you gave him a word for a thing, he could, after a good deal of huffing and blowing, repeat it, but the next time round you had to teach it to him all over again.”

One day he appeared out of the forest to three white children. The white settlers were always leery of him and felt that he was skulking around and spying on them so that he could go back and tell the blacks things. Then, he disappeared one day. The story then jumped ahead 15 years and it was indicated that Gemmy had been killed, along with some other blacks. Then it jumped again and was 50 years later and two of the white children who had originally found Gemmy at the beginning of the story had a meeting. Weird.

The story started off great, and there were more than a few references to the Aborigines but no more than a glimpse. What I learned was that the English settlers were terrified of the blacks and lived in constant fear of being attacked. They never tried to understand them or comprehend what they wanted when they came around. There was only one white man interested discovering the plants and trees and vegetation to report back to the Governor of the colony and his text was never taken seriously. It was Gemmy that showed him around and pointed out fruits and vegetation that was good to eat. Mr. Frazer made meticulous drawings and notes. Gemmy was fascinated watching him. He believed that Mr. Frazer had captured the spirit of what he had been shown.

There were parts of the story that are very good, descriptive and sensitive. Most of the characters are so-so. The author writes things and gives no reasons or examples and you are just left to say to yourself "okay - that was strange".

I got to chapter 19 and it was like - where did the rest of the story go??? And - what - did everyone fall asleep and wake up 30 years later during WWI?

So much for a book short listed for the Booker Prize! ...more

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Oct 16, 2015 Joseph rated it liked it

Shelves: books-read-in-2015

So I did like this novel for the the themes it explored, though I found the writing at times not so high quality. As I usually do when reading a novel, and for my own enjoyment not reading anything anyone else has said about it, just took the whole thing as literal. I soon realized that this could not be done and was not the author's intent. Questionable notion that a boy raised as English until the age of 13 would in a space of 16 years living with the aboriginal Australians lose almost So I did like this novel for the the themes it explored, though I found the writing at times not so high quality. As I usually do when reading a novel, and for my own enjoyment not reading anything anyone else has said about it, just took the whole thing as literal. I soon realized that this could not be done and was not the author's intent. Questionable notion that a boy raised as English until the age of 13 would in a space of 16 years living with the aboriginal Australians lose almost complete memory of his past and even the ability to speak English? Even more the assertion that living among the Aborigines resulted in the physical alteration of Gemmy so that he becomes unrecognizable as a white person? The author even cites as an example of how this could be so in saying that whites who live for extended periods among the Chinese find their very physical features altered, including eye shape, through some sort of osmosis. Well no. I realized then that the book could not be taken that way, that the character of Gemmy was more of a symbol of the potential of what could be in common between the Aborigines and British settlers and what was unbridgeable.

Taken at that I liked the author's exploration of what could have been for the European settlement of Australia. Gemmy really represents the possibilities and limitations for that. Mr. Frazer representing the potential for the British to attempt to adjust to become part of the Australia land and perhaps coexist with those who were already living there. On the other hand most of the other white settlers are only eager to remake to the extent possible the new land into a copy of the England that they had come from. This made Gemmy, a white who had managed to assimilate, a threat beyond any reality. The existing human population is a threat to be feared and destroyed.

Of course in historical reality the deep racism that was in the mothers milk of the British who colonized the world at that time made any such cultural accommodation near impossible. And it was clear who would in the end prevail—"Guns, Germs, and Steel." ...more

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Jan 30, 2012 Michelle Quinn rated it really liked it

There are no words.

Malouf appears to be a lyrical master, who produces nothing but beauty with every stroke of a pen. Indeed, as he writes toward the end of this spectacularly moving novel, 'he was tying up one of the loose ends of his life, which might otherwise have gone on bleeding forever'. There is the very real sense that Malouf, in this novel and many of his others, is not just grappling with the questions that individually experienced traumas can inflict, but with the greater questions ...more

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Feb 12, 2008 Matt rated it really liked it

Shelves: social-crit, fictions-of-the-big-it, worldly-lit

Moving. A lovingly written, poetically realzed novel about a shipwrecked boy growing up in the wilds of Australia who is taken into civilized British Colonial Society and suffers the exile and the torment of the clash of his identity.

Malouf is a poet, apparently a good one, and his prose is mild but incandescently so. It glows and he controls the tint as the story fits.

Very sad, very humble and moving. This is feeling of millions of people around the globe who find themselves somewhere between ...more

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Oct 16, 2015 A.J. rated it liked it · review of another edition

Out of the darkness of the wild comes a boy

The story gently sweeps along, weaving through a far-flung towns hopes and fears as colonial and Aboriginal Australia uneasily coexist. ...more

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Oct 04, 2018 Jessica rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2018-read

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Feb 17, 2009 Nancy rated it it was amazing

Shelves: historical-fiction, award-winner, australia, favorites, 20th-century, 19th-century

This is an absolutely beautiful book--I found myself quoting it constantly, i.e. "When she got up and walked out into the paddock, and all the velvety grass heads blazed up, haloed with gold, she felt under the influence of her secret skin, suddenly floaty, as if she had been relieved of the weight of her own life, and the brighter being in her was very gently stirring and shifting its wings."-- the character, Janet:

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Sep 20, 2018 Will rated it it was amazing

Shelves: family

Absolutely mesmerizing. A novel that approaches race, liminality, love, language, home, and growing up with a keen eye. More to come.

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Feb 22, 2019 Jenny rated it it was ok

Shelves: didnt-finish

This book turned out to be a disappointment to me. Far too much flipping from person to person.... and from time period to time period. I wanted to like it... but not for me.
There was a LOT of description... and the story got lost in that. I also felt the characters were almost shadows... not well developed at all....

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Mar 10, 2020 Rob Stainton rated it liked it

Disturbing. Weird. Hard to classify. Well worth reading, though.

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Jul 06, 2017 Chaitra rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: booker-prize-nominees, 1001-books, literary-fiction, historical-fiction, australian-fiction

I seem to have a way of picking opaque books to read when I have a cold and under heavy meds. I would have thought it's the other way around if it was any other book, that the book was opaque because I was under medication, but apparently I'm not the only one. I just learned that Malouf is also a poet, and that's probably why for most of the book, every sentence made perfect sense, but together it meant nothing.

There are some rather beautiful parts. Janet with her body covered in bees, her mind ...more

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Jul 27, 2013 Heidi rated it really liked it

Remembering Babylon is the story of Gemmy Fairley, a young British cabin boy who is washed up on the shores of Australia and adopted by the aborigines. Sixteen years later, he is discovered and (somewhat) adopted back into white society by a group of British settlers. The conclusion of the book then jumps forward again several years, and the reader discovers the outcome of several main characters.

This story is bigger than a simple survival tale, the life of a young boy forced to survive until he ...more

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Nov 25, 2017 Kris rated it liked it

This is a difficult review to write because this book is to beautifully written. The prose is gorgeous and lyrical, and there are some sections that are tattooed on my brain. That being said, it is problematic. Malouf manages to have an entire book with many elements of the Aboriginal culture that almost completely silences the people of that culture. Aborigines are present as an idea, but not as individuals. In fact, the main representative of the aboriginal in the text is a white man. It is ...more

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Dec 05, 2010 John rated it it was ok

Plucked from a stack of books I bought during college but opted not to read (take that, Prof. Mukherjee!). I wasn't inspired to read it 7 years ago, and, after finally reading it, understand why. The book is pretty dull. Granted, it's not too long at 200 pages and was artfully written, but the events that transpire in the book's pages didn't need to be novelized; in other words, a one-paragraph summary could pretty much convey most of what the book seeks to explore. That's not necessarily a bad ...more

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Mar 24, 2015 Kobe Bryant rated it liked it

I'm sorry to say that there wasn't a single kangaroo, dingo or wallaby in this book

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Sep 04, 2018 Tien rated it really liked it

Shelves: australian-author, historical-fiction, australia

David Malouf does not disappoint with his lyrical style of exposing the beauty of nature. And in juxtaposition, the ugliness of human nature. But there is hope! They are the little things like new green shoots that need nurturing care but yet sometimes the weight of the world can prove too much. It seems that David Malouf has this ability to draw you in to sympathise with his characters but then we are never really told what happened to them All lives end; we are told that much of his characters ...more

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Aug 27, 2017 Hans Otterson added it

A phenomenal story about an unlikely incident that interrogates the construct of race in a novel way: What could it mean for a white man to be black and yet still be white? What could it mean for the man, and also the white and the black societies he inhabits? Surely it was a commentary on the echoes of colonialism and the race relations of its day (published in 1993) just as much as it remains those things for today.

Remembering Babylon was mentioned in Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as ...more

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Dec 14, 2017 Lisa rated it really liked it

Shelves: novels

Tragic and very readable story telling about a European who had been with the Aboriginal community early in the 20th century trying to integrate back in. But also about what it takes to be part of a small rural community in general and how we exclude or include others.

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Aug 12, 2015 Steve Petherbridge rated it really liked it

David Malouf is becoming one of my favourite novelists. I realise that I was late in discovering this great writer. I really enjoyed this excellent book.

The central character of this story, set in the In the 1840s, is Gemmy Fairley, a 13-year-old ship's boy from a disturbed and abusive childhood, now cast ashore in the far north of what was then a newly discovered, and yet to be fully colonised and settled, Australia. He was taken in by the Aborigines, absorbing their way of life. Malouf begins ...more

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Aug 15, 2019 Marcus rated it liked it

Another book that I haven't, but will most likely finish someday.

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Mar 19, 2018 Kristina rated it it was ok

It was ok. A little boring, as nothing really happens in the book, but it's not badly written or anything.

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Discuss This Book

topics	posts	views	last activity
Colosseum. Sfide ...: GDL: Ritorno a Babilonia	20	19	Jan 19, 2020 05:06AM
Making Connections: forgotten writers	2	6	Jan 10, 2020 01:49PM
Making Connections: forgotten writers	1	6	Jan 10, 2020 12:18PM
Mr whitt	1	1	Sep 19, 2019 09:32PM
Reading 1001: Remembering Babylon - Malouf - 5 stars	3	6	Dec 25, 2016 07:18PM

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About David Malouf

David Malouf

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David Malouf is the author of ten novels and six volumes of poetry. His novel The Great World was awarded both the prestigious Commonwealth Prize and the Prix Femina Estranger. Remembering Babylon was short-listed for the Booker Prize. He has also received the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Award. He lives in Sydney, Australia.

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Quotes from Remembering Babylon

“Only slowly, after long watching, did he begin to distinguish the small signs that made them trackable: the ball of gristle in the corner of a man's cheek, which you could actually hear the soft click of if you listened for it; the swelling of the wormlike vein in a man's temple just below the hairline, the tightening of the crow's feet round his eyes, the almost imperceptible flicker of pinkish, naked lids; a deepening of the hollow above a man's collarbone as his throat muscles tenses, and some word he was holding back, because it was unspeakable, went up and down there, a lump of something he could neither swallow nor cough up.He saw these things now, and what astonished him was how much they gave away.” — 2 likes

“Till they arrived no other lives had been lived here. It made the air that much thinner, harder to breathe. She had not understood, till she came to a place where it was lacking, the extent to which her sense of the world had to do with the presence of those who had been there before, leaving signs of their passing and spaces still warm with their breath - a threshold worn with the coming and going of feet, hedges between fields that went back a thousand years, and the names even further; most of all, the names on headstones, which were their names, under which lay the bones that had made their bones and given them breath.” — 2 likes

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Quotes from Remembering Babylon

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