Books by J M Coetzee

Book SynopsisJ. M. Coetzee was born in Cape Town, South Africa in 1940. The author of some fifteen novels and winner of numerous awards, Coetzee is the first author to have been awarded the Booker Prize twice: for Life & Times of Michael K in 1983 and for Disgrace in 1999. In 2003 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. He lives in Australia.Trade ReviewA small miracle of a book...of marvellous intricacy and overwhelming power * Washington Post *A finely honed testament to its author's intelligence, imagination and skill * The New York Times *

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Book SynopsisJ. M. Coetzee was born in Cape Town, South Africa in 1940. The author of some fifteen novels and winner of numerous awards, Coetzee is the first author to have been awarded the Booker Prize twice: for Life & Times of Michael K in 1983 and for Disgrace in 1999. In 2003 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. He lives in Australia.Trade ReviewA small miracle of a book...of marvellous intricacy and overwhelming power * Washington Post *A finely honed testament to its author's intelligence, imagination and skill * The New York Times *

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Book SynopsisThis is a book about languages, what languages can and what they cannot do.Speaking in Tongues is a brilliant treatise from Nobel-Laureate novelist J. M. Coetzee in collaboration with leading international translator Mariana Dimópulous. Presented as a dialogue, Coetzee and Dimópulous's provocative work digs into questions that have plagued writers for centuries. They invite readers to grapple with the idea that language is actually culture's unique reflection into words. The difference between cultures, and in turn langauges, leads to the almost impossible task of the translator: to liberate the language imprisoned in a text and instill it into her recreation of that work.Along the journey, the authors also delve into topics such as which languages are gendered, the threat of monolingualism, and the possibility that mathematics could tell the truth about everything in the universe. In the tradition of Walter Benjamin's seminal The Task of the Translator, Speaking in Tongues, with its wide range of observations and propositions, emerges as a work of philosophy on its own, shining a light on some of the most important linguistic and philological issues of our time.

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Book SynopsisIn Boyhood, J. M. Coetzee revisits the South Africa of half a century ago, to write about his childhood and interior life. Boyhood''s young narrator grew up in a small country town. With a father he imitated but could not respect, and a mother he both adored and resented, he picked his way through a world that refused to explain its rules, but whose rules he knew he must obey. Steering between these contradictions, Boyhood evokes the tensions, delights and terrors of childhood with startling, haunting immediacy. Coetzee examines his young self with the dispassionate curiosity of an explorer rediscovering his own early footprints, and the account of his progress is bright, hard and simply compelling.Trade ReviewThis life is described with such skill, such exactitude and such relentlessness that I found myself gasping for air... Coetzee has achieved something universal in his work...a fine book, probably the best description of a childhood I have ever read * The Times *As funny, cruel and terrifying as life itself. It is also intense and elegant, clearly the product of the complex, subtle imagination which shapes Coetzee's outstanding fiction... As austerely beautiful as would be expected of Coetzee the artist...its aloof, edgy grace and seething passion ensure the narrative is both truthful and mysterious * Irish Times *Boyhood is a deeply-felt and utterly compelling account of a South African childhood: the narrative style is as spare and lean as the Karoo flatlands which form its backdrop * Daily Telegraph *The economy with which Coetzee makes sense of his past is evidence, once again, of his outstanding talent * Independent on Sunday *An uncannily accurate picture of the way things were in South Africa * Literary Review *

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Book SynopsisJ.M. Coetzee's work includes Waiting for the Barbarians, Life & Times of Michael K, Boyhood, Youth, Disgrace, Summertime, The Childhood of Jesus and, most recently, The Schooldays of Jesus. He was the first author to win the Booker Prize twice and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2003.Trade ReviewCoetzee's vision goes to the nerve center of being -- Nadine GordimerIts unflinching sense of loss, its claustrophobic acknowledgement of the unwilling interdependence of master and slave, and its subtle prose-style, make it an extraordinary achievement * Guardian *His writing gives off whiffs of Conrad, of Nabokov, of Golding, of the Paul Theroux of The Mosquito Coast. But he is none of these, he is a harsh, compelling voice * Sunday Times *Intense, clear and powerful. The promise, so brilliantly fulfilled in his later work, is clear in this earliest novel * Daily Telegraph *

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Book Synopsis'A great novel by one of the finest authors writing in the English language today' The TimesAfter years teaching Romantic poetry at the Technical University of Cape Town, David Lurie, middle-aged and twice divorced, has an impulsive affair with a student.Trade ReviewWhat is remarkable about Coetzee’s vision as a novelist is that it remains intensely human, rooted in common experience and replete with failure, doubt and frustration * Guardian *Exhilarating... One of the best novelists alive * Sunday Times *

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Book SynopsisJ. M. Coetzee is, without question, one of the world''s greatest novelists. This volume gathers together for the first time in book form twenty-nine pieces on books, writing, photography and the 1995 Rugby World Cup in South Africa. Stranger Shores opens with ''What is a Classic?'' in which Coetzee explores the answer to his own question - ''What does it mean in living terms to say that the classic is what survives?'' - by way of TS Eliot, JS Bach and Zbigniew Herbert. His subjects range from eighteenth and nineteenth century writers Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson and Ivan Turgenev, to the great German modernists Rilke, Kafka, and Musil, to the giants of late twentieth century literature, among them Harry Mulisch, Joseph Brodsky, Jorge Luis Borges, Salman Rushdie, Amos Oz, Naguib Mahfouz, Nadine Gordimer and Doris Lessing.Trade ReviewThe scale of Coetzee's reading makes most British criticism seem dully provincial -- Andrew Marr * Daily Telegraph *To read him on Kafka and on the deficiencies of the English translation of the work is to be put in touch with criticism at its most attentive and creative * Irish Indepedent *This is exemplary writing - balanced, clear, direct and profound * Literary Review *'What is a Classic?'...is a marvellous essay, and the book is worth buying for it alone. Coetzee the critic is every bit as good as Coetzee the novelist * Irish Times *

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Book SynopsisYouth''s narrator, a student in 1950s South Africa, has long been plotting an escape from his native country. Studying mathematics, reading poetry, saving money, he tries to ensure that when he arrives in the real world he will be prepared to experience life to its full intensity, and transform it into art. Arriving at last in London, however, he finds neither poetry nor romance. Instead he succumbs to the monotony of life as a computer programmer, from which random, loveless affairs offer no relief. Devoid of inspiration, he stops writing and begins a dark pilgrimage in which he is continually tested and continually found wanting. Set against the background of the 1960s, Youth is a remarkable portrait of a consciousness turning in on itself. J. M. Coetzee explores a young man''s struggle to find his way in the world with tenderness and a fierce clarity.Trade ReviewBrilliant...a remarkable feat * Sunday Times *Only a writer as great as J. M. Coetzee is capable of infusing meditation on the spoilt hope of youth with such clarity, fluency and poise... The quality of the writing and its unflinching truthfulness make it exhilarating * Daily Mail *This taut novel possesses the edgy grace that has consistently marked Coetzee's work * Irish Times *Tightly woven, each line detonating with meaning * Glasgow Herald *A memorable picture of the harshness London can offer to incomers... Youth is a wonderful book: a Bildungsroman, or portrait of the artist as a young man, to rank with any in the canon * Evening Standard *

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Book SynopsisJ.M. Coetzee's work includes Waiting for the Barbarians, Life & Times of Michael K, Boyhood, Youth, Disgrace, Summertime, The Childhood of Jesus and, most recently, The Schooldays of Jesus. He was the first author to win the Booker Prize twice and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2003.Trade ReviewOne of Coetzee's best...simply burns with creative passion -- D. J. Taylor * Independent *An important book... Extraordinary * Independent on Sunday *Probably the best book on the [Booker] longlist, the one that will last... Every word counts. Every sentence lives * Evening Standard *The best novel I've read this year, a book so bold and so clever that one wants to call it something other than a novel, to take it out of that commonplace genre -- Frank Kermode * Times Literary Supplement *A readable and engaging book. Demanding, playful, provocative...hugely enlightening and rewarding * Sunday Times *

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Book SynopsisCoetzee – soon to be a major film starring Mark Rylance, Robert Pattinson and Johnny DeppFor decades the Magistrate has run the affairs of a tiny frontier settlement, ignoring the impending war between the barbarians and the Empire, whose servant he is.Trade ReviewBrilliant . . . The story of an imaginary Empire, set in an unspecified place and time . . . A realistic fable, at once exciting and economical . . . A distinguished piece of fiction * New York Times *A writer of formidable strength. His novel is important not only for its theme but also for the beauty and clarity of his style * Daily Telegraph *I have known few authors who can evoke such a wilderness in the heart of man . . . Coetzee knows the elusive terror of Kafka * Sunday Times *J.M. Coetzee’s vision goes to the nerve centre of being. What he finds there is more than most people will ever know about themselves, and he conveys it with a brilliant writer’s mastery of tension and eleganceA remarkable and original book

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Book SynopsisJ.M. Coetzee's work includes Waiting for the Barbarians, Life & Times of Michael K, Boyhood, Youth, Disgrace, Summertime, The Childhood of Jesus and, most recently, The Schooldays of Jesus. He was the first author to win the Booker Prize twice and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2003.Trade ReviewHugely impressive-Coetzee never puts a foot wrong * Daily Mail *Anyone interested in the power of fiction to move us and extend our sense of life should get hold of this book * Spectator *An intense and deep book * Guardian *A stunning account of the relation of writers and events-A harsh and eloquent critique of the human condition. It is also a subtle, powerful, superbly written personal testament. The bleakness of vision is tempered only by the certainty that life can be material for art. This is art. The case is proven * Sunday Times *Both a gripping mystery and a meditation on the relationship between art and life * BBC History Magazine *

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Book SynopsisJ.M. Coetzee's work includes Waiting for the Barbarians, Life & Times of Michael K, Boyhood, Youth, Disgrace, Summertime, The Childhood of Jesus and, most recently, The Schooldays of Jesus. He was the first author to win the Booker Prize twice and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2003.Trade ReviewA strong and memorable novel * Guardian *It strikes deep inside the heart...The story is clean, clear, straight, the work of a mature imagination at full power...here is a book that will be celebrated for a long time * Mail on Sunday *This is a trule astonishing novel... I finished Life & Times of Michael K in a state of elation, for all the misery and suffering it contains. I cannot recommend it highly enough * Evening Standard *Beautifully written in a strong, plain, unpretentious style...distinguished by grim humour and powerful understatement * Sunday Express *The quality of Coetzee's writing lies in his inner vision: dark, passionately compassionate, concerned with the nature of man * Financial Times *

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Book SynopsisBut his feelings for her, and for her handsome teenage son, are complicated by the sudden arrival on his doorstep of the celebrated Australian novelist Elizabeth Costello, who threatens to take over the direction of his life and the affairs of his heart.Trade ReviewSensational... Another exemplary tale of suffering from one of the best writers of our time, who dares to articulate our incomprehensible existence, and manages it with extraordinary and sensitive eloquence * The Times *[Slow Man] finds the Nobel laureate on top form... A consummate writer of fiction * Observer *Coetzee is a unique voice; no novelist explores the ideas and the power of literature and the sense of displacement so boldly. Slow Man will add to his immense reputation * Independent on Sunday *Remorselessly human, it is also funny and touching: Coetzee the artist remains the complete novelist * Irish Times *A tremendous and startling novel... Coetzee is a novelist who cares about every word. Slow Man confirms him as among our greatest living authors * The Times *

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Book SynopsisAn eminent, ageing Australian writer is invited to contribute to a book entitled Strong Opinions. For him, troubled by Australia''s complicity in the wars in the Middle East,it is a chance to air some urgent concerns: how should a citizen of a modern democracy react to their state''s involvement in an immoral war on terror, a war that involves the use of torture?Then in the laundry room of his apartment block he encounters an alluring young woman. He offers her work typing up his manuscript. Anya is not interested in politics, but the job will be a welcome distraction, as will the writer''s evident attraction towards her. Her boyfriend, Alan, is an investment consultant who understands the world in harsh economic terms. Suspicious of his trophy girlfriend''s new pastime, Alan begins to formulate a plan...Trade ReviewThe work of a master * Daily Telegraph *You must read this book * Independent on Sunday *Coetzee is redrawing the contours of the novel and taking it places that it has rarely been before... Exhilarating * The Times *Complex and ultimately moving * Sunday Telegraph *Mesmerising * New Statesman *

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Book SynopsisJ.M. Coetzee's work includes Waiting for the Barbarians, Life & Times of Michael K, Boyhood, Youth, Disgrace, Summertime, The Childhood of Jesus and, most recently, The Schooldays of Jesus. He was the first author to win the Booker Prize twice and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2003.Trade ReviewWonderful stuff. But then, Coetzee is wonderful: edgy, black, remorselessly human, witty, and often outright funny... Summertime is offbeat and deliberate, elusive and truthful * Irish Times *The cumulative effect of Coetzee's unblinking honesty and his never-wavering seriousness is an understanding of the creation of a great writer * Sunday Telegraph *A subtle, allusive meditation: an intriguing map of a weak character's constricted heart struggling against the undertow of suspicion within South Africa's claustrophobic, unpoetic, overtly macho society * Financial Times *A poignant, cubistic portrait...It is not essential, however, that one know anything of Boyhood, Youth, or his other works to appreciate its rich offerings as an imaginatively distorted and distorting portrait of the artist as outsider * TLS *Compelling, funny, moving and full of life * Observer *

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Book SynopsisScenes from Provincial Life brings together, in one volume, J.M. Coetzee's majestic trilogy of fictionalised memoir, Boyhood, Youth and SummertimeIt opens in a small town in the South Africa of the 1940s. We meet a young boy who, at home, is ill at ease with his father and stifled by his mother's unconditional love. At school he passes every test that is set for him, but he remains wary of his fellow pupils. Later, as a student of mathematics in Cape Town he prepares to escape to Europe and turn himself into an artist. Once in London, however, the reality is dispiriting. Decades on, an English biographer researches a book about the late writer, John Coetzee. As he interviews important figures in Coetzee's life, a portrait emerges of an awkward outsider who even after death remains dogged by rumours.Trade ReviewDescribed with such skill, such exactitude and such relentlessness that I found myself gasping for air... Coetzee has achieved something universal in his work... A fine book, probably the best description of a childhood I have ever read * The Times (on Boyhood) *A memorable picture of the harshness London can offer to incomers... Youth is a wonderful book: a portrait of the artist as a young man, to rank with any in the canon * Evening Standard (on Youth) *This is the third instalment of a life so reserved, so repressed, so seething with polite rage and restrained despair that it could only be approached through a third-person voice...it is wonderful stuff * Irish Times (on Summertime) *The publication of Coetzee's trilogy of fictionalised memoir - Boyhood, Youth and Summertime - in one handsome volume highlights the uneasy relationship between the reality of his life and the fiction of his books -- Alex Preston * New Statesman *

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Book SynopsisFrom the double Booker Prize-winning author of Disgrace, ''a moving story of lost childhood'' (Sunday Telegraph).After crossing oceans, a man and a boy - both strangers to each other - arrive in a new land. David, the boy, has lost his mother and Simón vows to look after him. In this strange country they are each assigned a new name, a new birthday, a new life.Knowing nothing of their surroundings, nor the language or customs, they are determined to find David''s mother. Though the boy has no memory of her, Simón is certain he will recognise her at first sight. ''But after we find her,'' David asks, ''what are we here for?''The Childhood of Jesus is a profound, beautiful and continually surprising novel from a very great writer.''Powerful and poetic... This book will continue to act, silently and unexpectedly, on the reader''s imagination'' Financial TimesTrade ReviewRichly enigmatic, with regular flashes of Coetzee's piercing intelligence -- Theo Tait * Guardian *As ever, JM Coetzee manages to dodge every category with mesmeric cunning... This limpid, gnomic and surprisingly witty tale will take root in your imagination’ -- Boyd Tonkin * Independent *There are lots of traditions and tales mixed in – along with mathematics and a wonderfully poetic use of language * Financial Times *Engaging and thoughtful -- Theo Hobson * Tablet *Written with all of Coetzee’s penetrating rigour, it will be an early contender for an unprecedented third Booker prize -- Tim Adams * Observer *

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Book SynopsisAlthough Paul Auster and J.M. Coetzee had been reading each other''s books for years, the two writers did not meet until February 2008. Not long after, Auster received a letter from Coetzee, suggesting they begin exchanging letters on a regular basis and, ''God willing, strike sparks off each other.''Here and Now is the result of that proposal: an epistolary dialogue between two great writers who became great friends. Over three years their letters touched on nearly every subject, from sports to fatherhood, film festivals to incest, philosophy to politics, from the financial crisis to art, family, marriage, friendship, and love.Their correspondence offers an intimate and often amusing portrait of these two men as they explore the complexities of the here and now and is a reflection of two sharp intellects whose pleasure in each other''s friendship is apparent on every page.Trade ReviewExtraordinary book * Times Literary Supplement *Uniquely insightful, unfailingly interesting -- Arifa Akbar * Independent *How gripping it is to watch these two thoughtful, articulate men grappling with a world that hasn't quite turned out how they expected -- Olivia Laing * New Statesman *These pages are at their most compelling when the respective writers begin to dwell on the currency of their fiction -- Tim Adams * Observer *You feel that Auster and Coetzee are addressing each other directly and honestly. Some of it is rather moving, and underpinning it all is genuine affection -- Jon Day * Daily Telegraph *

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Book SynopsisA modern classic by Nobel Laureate J.M. Coetzee. His latest novel, The Schooldays of Jesus, is now available from Viking. Late Essays: 2006-2016 will be available January 2018. For decades the Magistrate has been a loyal servant of the Empire, running the affairs of a tiny frontier settlement and ignoring the impending war with the barbarians. When interrogation experts arrive, however, he witnesses the Empire's cruel and unjust treatment of prisoners of war. Jolted into sympathy for their victims, he commits a quixotic act of rebellion that brands him an enemy of the state.J. M. Coetzee's prize-winning novel is a startling allegory of the war between opressor and opressed. The Magistrate is not simply a man living through a crisis of conscience in an obscure place in remote times; his situation is that of all men living in unbearable complicity with regimes that ignore justice and decency.Mark Rylance (Wo

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Book SynopsisFrom author of Waiting for the Barbarians and Nobel Prize winner J.M. Coetzee. J.M. Coetzee's latest novel, The Schooldays of Jesus, is now available from Viking. Late Essays: 2006-2016 will be available January 2018. In a South Africa turned by war, Michael K. sets out to take his ailing mother back to her rural home. On the way there she dies, leaving him alone in an anarchic world of brutal roving armies. Imprisoned, Michael is unable to bear confinement and escapes, determined to live with dignity. This life affirming novel goes to the center of human experience—the need for an interior, spiritual life; for some connections to the world in which we live; and for purity of vision.

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Book SynopsisWith the same electrical intensity of language and insight that he brought to Waiting for the Barbarians, J.M. Coetzee reinvents the story of Robinson Crusoe—and in so doing, directs our attention to the seduction and tyranny of storytelling itself.J.M. Coetzee's latest novel, The Schooldays of Jesus, is now available from Viking. Late Essays: 2006-2016 will be available January 2018. In 1720 the eminent man of letters Daniel Foe is approached by Susan Barton, lately a castaway on a desert island. She wants him to tell her story, and that of the enigmatic man who has become her rescuer, companion, master and sometimes lover: Cruso. Cruso is dead, and his manservant, Friday, is incapable of speech. As she tries to relate the truth about him, the ambitious Barton cannot help turning Cruso into her invention. For as narrated by Foe—as by Coetzee himself—the stories we thought we knew acquire depths that are at once treacherous, elegant, and unexpectedly moving.

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Book SynopsisThe provocative Booker Prize winning novel from Nobel laureate, J.M. CoetzeeCompulsively readable... A novel that not only works its spell but makes it impossible for us to lay it aside once we've finished reading it. —The New YorkerAt fifty-two, Professor David Lurie is divorced, filled with desire, but lacking in passion. When an affair with a student leaves him jobless, shunned by friends, and ridiculed by his ex-wife, he retreats to his daughter Lucy's smallholding. David's visit becomes an extended stay as he attempts to find meaning in his one remaining relationship. Instead, an incident of unimaginable terror and violence forces father and daughter to confront their strained relationship and the equallity complicated racial complexities of the new South Africa. 2024 marks the 25th Anniversary of the publication of Disgrace

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Book SynopsisA beautiful collector's edition of J. M. Coetzee's Nobel Prize lectureIn his acceptance speech for the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature, J. M. Coetzee delivered an intriguing and enigmatic short story, He and His Man. The story features Robinson Crusoe, long after his return from the island, reflecting on death and spectacle, writing and allegory, solitude and sociability, as he searches his mind for some true understanding of the man who writes of and for him. In the spare and powerful prose for which Coetzee is renowned, The Nobel Lecture in Literature, 2003 is a provocative testament to the uncompromising vision of one of the world's most profound writers.

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Book SynopsisFrom the Nobel Prize–winning author of Waiting for the Barbarians, The Life & Times of Michael K and Disgrace.  Nobel laureate and two-time Booker Prize winner J. M. Coetzee returns with a haunting and surprising novel about childhood and destiny that is sure to rank with his classic novels. Separated from his mother as a passenger on a boat bound for a new land, David is a boy who is quite literally adrift. The piece of paper explaining his situation is lost, but a fellow passenger, Simón, vows to look after the boy. When the boat docks, David and Simón are issued new names, new birthdays, and virtually a whole new life. Strangers in a strange land, knowing nothing of their surroundings, nor the language or customs, they are determined to find David’s mother. Though the boy has no memory of her, Simón is certain he will recognize her at first sight. “But after we find her,” David asks

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Book SynopsisThis text presents an analysis of censorship from the perspective of a writer who has lived and worked under its shadow. Seeking to understand the passion that plays itself out in acts of silencing and censoring, Coetzee focuses on the ways authors have historically responded to censorship.Table of ContentsPreface and Acknowledgments 1: Taking Offense 2: Emerging from Censorship 3: Lady Chatterley's Lover: The Taint of the Pornographic 4: The Harms of Pornography: Catharine MacKinnon 5: Erasmus: Madness and Rivalry 6: Osip Mandelstam and the Stalin Ode 7: Censorship and Polemic: Solzhenitsyn 8: Zbigniew Herbert and the Figure of the Censor 9: Apartheid Thinking 10: The Work of the Censor: Censorship in South Africa 11: The Politics of Dissent: Andre Brink 12: Breyten Breytenbach and the Reader in the Mirror Notes Works Cited Index

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Book SynopsisNobel Laureate and two-time Booker prize-winning author of Disgrace and The Life and Times of Michael K, J. M. Coetzee tells the remarkable story of a nation gripped in brutal apartheid in his Sunday Express Book of the Year award-winner Age of Iron. In Cape Town, South Africa, an elderly classics professor writes a letter to her distant daughter, recounting the strange and disturbing events of her dying days. She has been opposed to the lies and the brutality of apartheid all her life, but now she finds herself coming face to face with its true horrors: the hounding by the police of her servant''s son, the burning of a nearby black township, the murder by security forces of a teenage activist who seeks refuge in her house. Through it all, her only companion, the only person to whom she can confess her mounting anger and despair, is a homeless man who one day appears on her doorstep.In Age of Iron, J. M. Coetzee brings his searing iTrade ReviewIt is, quite simply, a magnificent and unforgettable work * Daily Telegraph *A superbly realised novel whose truth cuts to the bone * The New York Times *A fierce pageant of modern South Africa ... A remarkable work by a brilliant writer * Wall Street Journal *Coetzee is one of the greatest writers of our time ... Age of Iron is taut, ironic, grieving and, finally, astonishing * Los Angeles Times *

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Book SynopsisNobel Laureate and two-time Booker prize-winning author of Disgrace, J. M. Coetzee tells the remarkable story of a nation gripped in brutal apartheid in Age of Iron. In Cape Town, South Africa, an elderly classics professor writes a letter to her distant daughter, recounting the strange and disturbing events of her dying days. She has been opposed to the lies and the brutality of apartheid all her life, but now she finds herself coming face to face with its true horrors: the hounding by the police of her servant''s son, the burning of a nearby black township, the murder by security forces of a teenage activist who seeks refuge in her house. Through it all, her only companion, the only person to whom she can confess her mounting anger and despair, is a homeless man who one day appears on her doorstep.In Age of Iron, J. M. Coetzee brings his searing insight and masterful control of language to bear on one of the darkest episodes of our times.Trade ReviewIt is, quite simply, a magnificent and unforgettable work * Daily Telegraph *A superbly realised novel whose truth cuts to the bone * The New York Times *A fierce pageant of modern South Africa ... A remarkable work by a brilliant writer * Wall Street Journal *Coetzee is one of the greatest writers of our time ... Age of Iron is taut, ironic, grieving and, finally, astonishing * Los Angeles Times *

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Book SynopsisHere and Now is a collection of letters between Paul Auster and Nobel laureate J. M. Coetzee, two of the greatest writers of our time.'Uniquely insightful.' Independent'Extraordinary.' Times Literary SupplementAlthough Paul Auster and J. M. Coetzee had been reading each other's books for years, the two writers did not meet until February 2008. Not long after, Auster received a letter from Coetzee, suggesting they begin exchanging letters on a regular basis and, 'God willing, strike sparks off each other'.Here and Now is the result of that proposal: an epistolary dialogue between two great writers who became great friends. Over three years their letters touched on nearly every subject, from sports to fatherhood, literature to film, philosophy to politics, from the financial crisis to art, eroticism, marriage, friendship, and love.

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Book SynopsisFeaturing English translations side-by-side with the originals, this volume contains the work of six of the most important modern and contemporary Dutch poets. Ranging in style from the rhetorical to the intensely lyrical, the work here includes examples of myth-influenced modernist verse, nature poetry, experimental poetry, and more.Trade Review"[Coetzee's] choices all have the capacity to pique poetry readers' interest in more by these striking, thoroughly European modernists... [An] enjoyably challenging little sampler."--Booklist "To lay bare something of the individuality of one poet's voice can be difficult enough. For this book, J.M. Coetzee has translated six 20th-century poets from the Netherlands, rendering all of them with delicate virtuosity. Each poet comes across as having an arresting and distinctive voice, which is then allowed to resonate all the more effectively thanks to the translator's choice of poems of a sequential nature."--Alan Marsahll, Daily Telegraph "Coetzee's own varied life--as a computer programmer with a doctorate in computer-generated language, as a polyglot 'post-structuralist linguist,' as a world-renowned novelist--rivals that of the most eclectic of the poets he's translated. Way back before the novels that earned him an unprecedented two Booker Prizes, however, he cherished his own hopes of becoming a poet. Clearly, with his faithful translation from the Dutch and his shrewd assessment of this little-known body of literature, Coetzee's earliest ambition is now yielding a surprising late harvest."--Cynthia Haven, San Francisco Chronicle "Coetzee here demonstrates a sharp ear and deft hand with poems in a variety of voices... [It] is a gift to come upon these translations from six poets definitely worth our attention."--Library Journal "The book has been lovingly and beautifully produced... I was struck by how much more starkly and conspicuously the effort to grapple with the horrific century just past comes through in the writings of smaller nations... Mr. Coetzee's translations of these cool and astringent poems read well... By relying on slant or partial rhymes, he often succeeds in conveying the music of the originals--no mean feat."--Eric Ormsby, New York Sun "These poems are whispered in the back pew of some massive cathedral where Stevens and Stein are saying benedictions. But sitting in the back row isn't just an act of humility: back here you can have a little fun at the priest's expense. It is that combination of devout parishioner and irreverent jester that makes these poems breathe."--Dan Chiasson, Poetry "In Coetzee's artful translations, these poems suggest the power of the half-known."--Robert Pinsky, Washington Post Book WorldTable of ContentsPreface vii GERRIT ACHTERBERG (1905-62) Ballade van de gasfitter / Ballad of the Gasfitter 2 SYBREN POLET (1924- ) Zelfrepeterend gedicht / Self-Repeating Poem 32 HUGO CLAUS (1929- ) Tien manieren om P. B. Shelley te zien / Ten Ways of Looking at P. B. Shelley 48 CEES NOOTEBOOM (1933- ) Basho / Basho 60 HANS FAVEREY (1933-90) Chrysanten, roeiers / Chrysanthemums, rowers 70 "De aarde; uit aardewerk bestaande" / "The earth; consisting of earthenware" 80 "Aan de vaas" / "From the vase" 82 RUTGER KOPLAND (1934- ) Afdaling op klaarlichte dag / Descent in Broad Daylight 88

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewJ.M. Coetzee, Winner of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature "[A] beautifully constructed, troubling, provacative book which resonates in the mind and heart long after you've turned the last page."--Helen Kaye, The Jerusalem Post "If Coetzee ... were an animal, he would be a fox-quick, aloof and crafty... [A]nimal rights and ethical vegetarianism are natural subjects for him. The debate about them turns on questions of suffering, something to which Coetzee's sensorium is pitched with particular keenness."--Benjamin Kunkel, The Nation "The audience of the 1997-98 Tanner Lectures at Princeton probably expected South African novelist Coetzee to deliver a pair of formal essays... Instead, he gave his listeners fiction: a philosophical narrative about an imaginary feminist novelist ... and the lectures she reads at the fictional Appleton College."--Publishers Weekly "For Coetzee fans and others interested in the links between philosophy, reason, and the rights of nonhumans."--Booklist "Fluent, challenging lectures on the ethics that shape the human-animal relationship... Coetzee takes no prisoners... [An] ethical tinderbox."--Kirkus Reviews "An accessible, thought-provoking introduction to the issues surrounding animal rights."--Adam Lively, The Sunday Telegraph "Coetzee's dense, witty hybrid is very welcome; ... [he] brings a rich array of themes into play, including the differences between animals and humans, the nature of philosophy and poetry, the purpose of a university, the role of a reason and the emotions in moral deliberation."--Ben Rogers, Financial Times "The Lives of Animals is a stimulating and worrying book. It is hard to imagine anyone coming away from it without a new perspective on our relation not only to animals but to the natural world in general, and, indeed, to ourselves."--John Banville, The Irish Times "The Lives of Animals is a moral argument within a fictional framework... But fiction has the power to disturb and inspire strong emotions, and this book, thoughtfully argued and committed, is certainly a case in point."--Maren Meinhardt, Times Literary Supplement "I found The Lives of Animals a genuinely troubling book... I imagine that Coetzee feels the force of almost all the ideas and emotions that his characters express. He is working and living at the edge of our moral sensibilities about animals."--Ian Hacking, The New York Review of Books "There is a general message that resonates throughout this novella, and one that I found quite compelling. It is that we often assess our relationships with animals based on whether they have human-like mental status, like rationality or self-consciousness, and if they don't, then we feel justified in using them as objects ... I found the book deeply disturbing ... [It] offers a passionate and compelling look at one side of the debate."--Asif A. Ghazanfar, Nature Neuroscience "A little-known but brilliant tour de force... It's the most artful, thoughtful piece of writing I've come across on the subject of animal rights."--Marni Jackson, The Globe and MailTable of ContentsINTRODUCTION Amy Gutmann 3 THE LIVES OF ANIMALS J. M. Coetzee The Philosophers and the Animals 15 The Poets and the Animals 47 REFLECTIONS Marjorie Garber 73 Peter Singer 85 Wendy Doniger 93 Barbara Smuts 107 CONTRIBUTORS 121 INDEX 123

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Book SynopsisOne of Vanity Fair's "Best Books of the Fall" From the Nobel Prize-winning author of Disgrace, a psychologically probing, compulsively readable novel about love and the mutability of human relationships.Trade Review"Like all of Mr. Coetzee’s best books, The Pole is a textual echo chamber—gesturing to Dante, Don Quixote, George Sand and even Mr. Coetzee’s own novel Disgrace—that never feels smothered by its allusions. Quick, deft, stimulating, stripped-down but unexpectedly moving, it’s a return to form by a writer who can make music from the fewest possible notes." -- Sam Sacks - Wall Street Journal"With ‘The Pole,’ Coetzee muddies the waters of national purity with his trademark clarity . . . [T]he book approaches the politics of Polishness in true Coetzee fashion: with elegant elision, at such an angle as to be almost imperceptible . . . While some might read 'The Pole' as a love story that unfolds across a language barrier, it is at its heart a novel about language that can be told only through a love plot . . . The novel presents words and what we desire to say as two points on a map, as far apart as the poles. To confront the distance between them is daunting, but love pushes us along." -- Jennifer Wilson - The New Yorker"[A] masterclass in the ‘late style’ at its best . . . among the pleasures of ‘The Pole’ are the layers it reveals. It is a book not only of the living but also of the dead. What does love mean? Coetzee wants us to consider. And memory — what consolations can it offer when we know it doesn’t last? . . . In this deeply moving novel, Coetzee reminds us of what we wish we didn’t have to remember: that everything dissolves." -- David L. Ulin - Los Angeles Times"Coetzee has been giving us lessons in beauty – a certain kind of beauty – for decades . . . The Pole shows that, at 83 years old, there is no diminishing of his talents. Long may he darken our pages with prose." -- John Self - The Guardian"In The Pole, Coetzee forges an autofiction of contemplation, in which thought and inquiry take precedence over melodrama — because time is running out." -- Christian Lorentzen - Financial Times"[H]aunting and surreptitiously heartfelt… In an age of virtue signaling, Coetzee has the courage to bypass every fashionable position and reassurance and, by so doing, in The Pole, to catch some emotional truth, about loneliness and bewilderment and need, that really pierces... [As] soon as I completed it, I wanted to go back and read the whole elliptical thing again…" -- Pico Iyer - AirMail"[A] svelte and melancholy novel… for a book that draws so heavily on the language and subject matter of music, The Pole remains remarkably quiet. This quietude…proves Coetzee’s masterstroke." -- Ellie Ebberlie - Chicago Review of Books"With The Pole, Coetzee, ever enigmatic, plays slowly, deliberately, with a delicate nuance that continues to impress." -- J.R. Patterson - World Literature Today"[A]n unconventional Polish pianist is entranced by a woman more than two decades his junior; a relationship J.M. Coetzee elegantly shadows with that of Chopin and George Sand." -- Vanity Fair, "Best Books of the Fall""Exquisitely elevating the fundamental influences of music and language, The Pole unequivocally affirms the often enigmatic relationships among art, love, and human experience." -- George Kendall, Booklist, starred review"[R]ich and engrossing . . . The prose is unornamented but nevertheless consistently incisive. Coetzee’s ability to render the human condition in all its vagaries is as masterful as ever." -- Publishers Weekly"The writer who reinvents the rules of the genre in which he writes is an outlaw. . . . Coetzee has been an outlaw novelist since 1973." -- Benjamin Ogden - New York Times Book Review"Coetzee may turn out to be one of the last great novelists, exalted by the intensity of his self-awareness and his willingness to make his home in a spiritual and intellectual impasse of which few of his contemporaries were even aware." -- Pankaj Mishra - Nation"[Coetzee] is a consummate withholder, one of the great masters of the unsaid and the inexplicit." -- Fintan O’Toole - New York Review of Books

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Book SynopsisThe luminous new novel from 'one of the best writers of our time', double Booker Prize winner J. M. Coetzee.'Full of truth, tearfully moving to read... Brilliant' Evening StandardSimón and David - a tall ten-year-old - are in a new land, together with a woman named Inés. The small family have found a home in which David can thrive. But David is spotted by Julio Fabricante, the director of a local orphanage, playing football with his friends. He shows unusual talent. When David announces that he wants to live with Julio and the children in his care, Simón and Inés are stunned. David is leaving them, and they can only love him and bear witness.The Death of Jesus is the completion of an incomparable trilogy in which J. M. Coetzee explores the meaning of a world empty of memory but brimming with questions.* A New York Times Notable Book *___________________'Extraordinary... Coetzee stands as the pre-eminent novelist in the English-writing world' New Statesman'You will read its cool, dry final sentences - as I did - with tears in your eyes' The TimesTrade ReviewAnything J.M. Coetzee writes deserves our full attention…The Death of Jesus is full of truth, irreducible, tearfully moving to read -- David Sexton * Evening Standard, *Book of the Week* *Concludes the trilogy with force and heart… if The Death of Jesus strikes you in the right place, then you will read its cool, dry final sentences – as I did – with tears in your eyes -- John Self * The Times *Any new novel from Coetzee commands respect, and the final part of the trilogy is no exception… The Death of Jesus constantly challenges what we believe and why -- Max Davidson * Mail on Sunday *The Death of Jesus is a necessary read, casting a strange new light on one of the world’s greatest and most elusive novelists -- Doug Battersby * Financial Times *A phenomenon that arrives from out of nowhere and challenges our received ideas to breaking point ... a delicate, iridescent mystery * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisFrom the double Booker Prize-winning author of Disgrace, an astonishing novel of new beginnings and the troubles of youth.'Brilliant... Tenaciously absorbing' Daily TelegraphDavid is the small boy who is always asking questions. Simón and Inés take care of him in their new town, Estrella. He is learning the language, he has begun to make friends and he has the big dog Bolívar to watch over him.But he'll be seven soon and he should be at school. And so, David is enrolled in the Academy of Dance. It's here, in his new golden dancing slippers, that he learns how to call down the numbers from the sky. Yet it's here too that he will make troubling discoveries about what adults are capable of.The Schooldays of Jesus is a mesmerising tale about growing up, and about the choices we are forced to make in our lives.'Compelling, often very funny, full of sudden depths' ObserverLonglisted for the Booker Prize 2016Trade ReviewCompelling, often very funny, full of sudden depths * Observer *Brilliant...tenaciously absorbing * Daily Telegraph *It is written with the coolness and limpidity that makes Coetzee a master... There were moments where I found it almost too affecting to read -- David Sexton * Evening Standard *It’s compulsively enigmatic but surprisingly funny too. * Metro *Coetzee doesn't want to be understood, or explained. He wants, merely, to be read. The Schooldays of Jesus is, indeed, very readable * The Times *

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Book SynopsisFrom the double Booker Prize-winning author of Disgrace, 'a moving story of lost childhood' (Sunday Telegraph).After crossing oceans, a man and a boy - both strangers to each other - arrive in a new land. David, the boy, has lost his mother and Simón vows to look after him. In this strange country they are each assigned a new name, a new birthday, a new life.Knowing nothing of their surroundings, nor the language or customs, they are determined to find David's mother. Though the boy has no memory of her, Simón is certain he will recognise her at first sight. 'But after we find her,' David asks, 'what are we here for?'The Childhood of Jesus is a profound, beautiful and continually surprising novel from a very great writer.'Powerful and poetic... This book will continue to act, silently and unexpectedly, on the reader's imagination' Financial TimesTrade ReviewRichly enigmatic, with regular flashes of Coetzee's piercing intelligence -- Theo Tait * Guardian *As ever, JM Coetzee manages to dodge every category with mesmeric cunning... This limpid, gnomic and surprisingly witty tale will take root in your imagination’ -- Boyd Tonkin * Independent *There are lots of traditions and tales mixed in – along with mathematics and a wonderfully poetic use of language * Financial Times *Engaging and thoughtful -- Theo Hobson * Tablet *Written with all of Coetzee’s penetrating rigour, it will be an early contender for an unprecedented third Booker prize -- Tim Adams * Observer *

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Book SynopsisJ.M. Coetzee's work includes Waiting for the Barbarians, Life & Times of Michael K, Boyhood, Youth, Disgrace, Summertime, The Childhood of Jesus and, most recently, The Schooldays of Jesus. He was the first author to win the Booker Prize twice and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2003.

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Book SynopsisA fascinating collection of essays on literary subjects ranging from Daniel Defoe to Samuel Beckett by a Nobel and Booker Prize-winning writerLate Essays gathers together J.M. Coetzee’s literary essays from 2006 to 2017. The subjects covered in this stunning collection range from Daniel Defoe in the early eighteenth century to Coetzee’s contemporary Philip Roth. Coetzee has had a long-standing interest in German literature and here he engages with the work of Goethe, Hölderlin, Kleist and Walser. There are four fascinating essays on fellow Nobel laureate Samuel Beckett and he looks at the work of three Australian writers: Patrick White, Les Murray and Gerald Murnane. There are essays too on Tolstoy’s great novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich, on Flaubert’s masterpiece Madame Bovary, and on the Argentine modernist Antonio Di Benedetto.Trade ReviewA writer of JM Coetzee’s stature needs no preamble… This book emerges as an engaging series of master classes in novel writing, from which we might distil a selection of dos and don’ts -- Lauren Elkin * Guardian *J.M. Coetzee's essays are filtered through boundless reserves of knowledge, wisdom and reading...A spare, dry sense of humour...Not a single page goes by in this collection when you don't learn something * Spectator *Coetzee remains a highly original thinker, able to take a much-dissected novel such as Flaubert’s Madame Bovary and offer an appreciation that stretches the boundaries of the reading experience. The most intriguing essay is one on Philip Roth, a rare occasion where Coetzee tackles one of his contemporaries -- Tobias Grey * Financial Times *His essays are models of clarity, judicious reasoning, and respectful attention… a kind of sage who brings composure to bear on the earthquake zones of mind and heart. He is a master of prose’s lucidities, all the while cognisant of the hidden presence of poetry… Late Essays gives you the feeling that Coetzee has come to look into the eyes of writers, the better to read them with the justice they deserve * The Monthly *His interest is in delving into the writer’s mind, the circumstances surrounding the work and the thinking processes that led to writerly choices in terms of form, style, and themes...Above all, he brings the perspective of one who has much to teach us about slow reading. * Australian Book Review *

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Book SynopsisAfter years teaching Romantic poetry in Cape Town, David Lurie has an impulsive affair with a student.The affair sours; he is denounced and summoned before a committee of inquiry. Willing to admit his guilt, but refusing to yield to pressure to repent publicly, he resigns and retreats to his daughter Lucy's isolated smallholding. For a time, his daughter's influence and the natural rhythms of the farm promise to harmonise his discordant life. But the balance of power in the country is shifting. He and Lucy become victims of a savage and disturbing attack which brings into relief all the faultlines in their relationship.''A great novel by one of the finest authors writing in the English language today'' The Times''At the frontier of world literature'' Sunday Telegraph**One of the BBC''s 100 Novels That Shaped Our World**

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