David Foster was born in 1944 in the NSW Blue Mountains. He trained as a scientist at the University of Sydney, the Australian National University and the University of Pennsylvania, but soon turned to writing. He is the author of scientific papers, essays, short stories, novellas, poetry and novels. He was won the Age, Courier Mail and National Book Council Book of the Year awards and, in 1997, the Miles Franklin Award for The Glade Within the Grove, which was also shortlisted for the Dublin IMPAC Award. His most recent accolade is the 2010 Patrick White Award. David lives in the NSW Southern Highlands with his wife Gerda.
'Foster's masterwork. His radical self-questioning leaves him out of both political camps and from much of Australia's overly politicised literary community, where such self-questioning is rare. And this is his true enduring value.' Matthew Lamb, The Australian Literary Review
'Sons of the Rumour is a tour de force, a challenge to conventional pieties and also to a so-called culture where Dan Brown is triumphant. Given the triviality of much of what passes for literature these days, we can only be thankful for that.' Andrew Riemer, The Sydney Morning Herald
'In its command of its material and its sheer vitality, Sons of the Rumour represents an extraordinary addition to Foster's already remarkable oeuvre. Strange and beautiful might be two words to describe it, but that barely begins to convey the novel's range of invention. Attempt to characterise Foster's writing and eventually one will run out of adjectives. There is simply no one remotely like him in contemporary Australian fiction. He is so far ahead of everyone else that it's not funny. Except it is funny – very, very funny. His bogan Shahrazad is a scream. Foster has never been reluctant to announce the fact that he believes his work to be superior – that he is operating on a creative and intellectual plane inaccessible to most novelists – which is shamelessly egotistical of him, but he's right.' James Ley, Australian Book Review
'Brilliant and insightful … an entertaining tour de force by a writer in mature command of language. It is Foster at his very best, overwhelming the reader with his imagination, comic energy, wisdom and the richness of his material.' Susan Lever, The Australian
'Foster's out-of-the-box imagination, his command over the vast range of his stories and the many voices that tell them, together with their ability to speak to the larger world, transform them into something more than the sum of their complex parts and into a work of great and confident Australian literature. It is truly to be cherished.' David Sornig, The Age
'David Foster is paradoxically one of Australia's earthiest and most erudite writers. [Sons of the Rumour] is challenging yet quite mesmerising … [a] heady, bawdy and complex tour de force.' Katharine England, The Adelaide Advertiser
'A work of brilliant and fervid imagination, of prodigal narrative invention, [Sons of the Rumour] insinuates a sexual and cultural politics at once insistent, cryptic and, no doubt, offensive for some.' Peter Pierce, The Canberra Times
'Foster writes with a peculiarly manic gleam in his eye, playing an entirely new tune on the old tropes – a master of the medium.' Ian Nichols, The West Australian
'Foster is a writer of exquisite intellect and linguistic daring, and Sons of the Rumour is a brilliant masterwork. Although this novel is heavy-going most of the time, tedious as well as befuddling, the toil is well worth it. Foster is a giant of ideas and satire, of wit and wildly beautiful passages.' Adair Jones, The Courier-Mail