Miles funnier and ruder than anything else of its kind

Delicious cleverness and funniness . . . slips down as easily as strawberry soufflé

Fabulously funny . . . ace

David Malouf writes with the voice of a poet; his graceful fiction deals in truth and is always beautiful... This is a book that will engage and inspire... In writing this novel Malouf is honouring a great work and also making his own

In bringing something radically new, yet sensitively overlaid, to an already powerful epic, Malouf proves that an "untold tale" can be every bit as rewarding as its ancient original

David Malouf has written a rich, moving and sometimes disturbing novel, one to read, as it demands, in a sitting and then to return to and read slowly. It is a worthy tribute to Homer and to the enduring fascination with the Iliad and Odyssey exert on our imagination

This is a great story...Malouf's beautiful language puts fresh flesh on to these ancient characters

Few writers possess the natural lyric grace of Malouf

Malouf's poetic yet muscular prose is wonderful

A marvel- beautifully written, surprisingly moving, quietly rather brilliant

While Malouf's chief interest is in the human impulses that lie behind the epic deeds, he remains faithful to the beliefs and values of the ancient world

immensely moving, modern novel

A dignified performance ... in writing this novel Malouf is honouring a great work and also making a great work of his own ... his graceful fiction deals in truth and is always beautiful

Beautifully written and very moving, Ransom is a reimagining that respects Homer's original while expanding expertly on its themes.

Malouf captures the moving humanity of Priam's grief

Lyrical reworking of the final scenes of The Iliad

This superb novel goes by in a heartbeat, so smooth and engrossing is David Malouf's prose...It is a touching tale, full of pain, but rendered beautifully by Malouf's humanity

An audacious reworking of Homer's Iliad.

David Malouf...has given Homer's epic fresh life in this haunting mood piece...a graceful, eloquent text dominated by rage and sorrow

This novel explores the timeless motifs of epic, in miniature

You know it ends in death, and so do Malouf's haunted protagonists, but this telling, at once unfussy and wonderfully poetic, breathes warm life into a great epic

Breathtaking skill...an extraordinary emotional charge.

A finely honed, writerly and wise revisiting of one of the most famous episodes in The Iliad, when Priam the King of Troy goes to bring home the body of his dead son Hector. No-one in prose has managed to better Malouf's imaginative recreation of the Homeric world.

a potent new yarn... Beautifully written in simple language freighted with meaning, Ransom explores a king's impulse to act as a mourning father.