An Imaginary Life

In An Imaginary Life, David Malouf recreates in his imagination, the life of the poet, Ovid.  Ovid was renowned for many literary works including Amores, a collection of short love poems and Ars Amatoria, a handbook on love. His most famous work was Metamorphoses, a selection of stories drawn from classical Greek and Roman myths which have one common element, that of transformation. Metamorphoses contains stories of animals which change into stone, of men and women who turn into trees, animals, stones or stars, and this is an underlying theme in Malouf's work.