In the Company of Rilke

Why a 20th-Century Visionary Poet Speaks So Eloquently to 21st-Century Readers

By: Stephanie Dowrick

Narrated by: Stephanie Dowrick

In the Company of Rilke is an audiobook about a rare poet. Rainer Maria Rilke was a giant of 20th-century writing who is increasingly a visionary voice for our own time, captivating readers not only with his brilliance but also his fearlessness about the 'deepest things'. Speaking through his own contradictions and ambivalences, he gives readers a profound understanding of the complex beauty of human existence. Here, questions matter more than answers. Here, a poet can speak directly to God while also doubting God. Astonishingly, this is the first major study of Rilke from a spiritual perspective yet the greatest of Rilke's gifts was to show how inevitably life centres upon a profound mystery – to which we can freely open ourselves. Drawing on her own deep understanding of the gifts of reading, as well as her personal spiritual seeking, Stephanie Dowrick offers an intimate understanding of this most exceptional poet and his transcendent, piercingly beautiful work.©2009 Wise Angels Pty Ltd (P)2013 Bolinda Publishing

Critic reviews

"Stephanie Dowrick’s gift is a capacity for sharing with readers her lifetime’s pleasure in poetry and the company of one of the greatest of poets." (David Malouf, novelist and poet)

"This book is lovely: serious, informed, honest, warm, delightful...Stephanie Dowrick has accomplished something wonderful, bringing us into the company of the most human of men and into the presence of his astonishingly beautiful poetry." (Dr. John Armstrong, philosopher and writer)

Worth Repeating

Stephanie Dowrick is an beautiful narrator and author. I will listen to this book again and again.

Delicately & Nobly Written ....

This book, which is delicately and nobly written, radiates with beauty, elegance and with all due love and tenderness that should be there when writing about a poet like Rilke.

If you love Rilke . . .

What did you love best about In the Company of Rilke?

The author has a wonderful command of the poet's work and a great voice. You are swept away by both. I have a much better sense of Rilke after this.