Stephen Ramay

he and they are at the same part of the journey of life.

Absolutely, and it makes you wonder about whether you're doing the right thing now to not end up in some of the places they end up in.

Very much so.

And because it's real.

Yeah, it's real.

That's what happens.

The third one that I would nominate, and I must say, this is the one I've read most recently of the ones I've talked about and it has stuck in my head hard since.

is Christos Tsiolkos' new novel, Damascus.

I read it in two sittings, it's about 500 pages, and it is a novel about the early days of Christianity.

The central character is the person we know as St Paul.

But what Christos does in all of his writing, but this is such a big challenge to do it with the subject matter he's using here, is he makes it so human.

I just think it's a remarkable achievement.

In fact, when I read it, I thought to myself afterwards, could I think of another Australian writer who could do this?

And I haven't thought about that for a long time.

Well...

Maybe.

I mean, the one that came to my mind was David Malouf.

I was going to say Malouf.

Because a ransom, for example, is a reimagination of part of the Iliad.

So he's able to do that.