Best Selling Books by J. M. Coetzee

When you travel across the ocean on a boat, all your memories are washed away and you start a completely new life. That is how it is. There is no before. There is no history. The boat docks at the harbour and we climb down the gangplank and we are plunged into the here and now. Time begins. Davíd 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. He has the big dog Bolívar to watch over him. But he''ll be seven soon and he should be at school. And so, Davíd 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. But it''s here too that he will make troubling discoveries about what grown-ups are capable of. In this mesmerising allegorical tale, Coetzee deftly grapples with the big questions of growing up, of what it means to be a parent, the constant battle between intellect and emotion, and how we choose to live our lives.

A new collection of essays and literary criticism from the Nobel Prize winner. In addition to being one of the most acclaimed and accomplished fiction writers in the world, Coetzee is also a literary critic of the highest caliber. As Derek Attridge observes in his introduction, reading Coetzee''s nonfiction offers one the opportunity to see "how an author at the forefront of his profession engages with his peers, not as a critic from the outside, but as one who works with the same raw materials." In this collection of twenty recent pieces, Coetzee examines the work of some of the twentieth century''s greatest writers. Insightful, challenging, yet accessible, these essays demonstrate Coetzee''s sharp eye and unwavering critical acumen and will be of interest to his fans as well as to all readers of international literature.--From publisher description.

J.M. Coetzee''s latest novel, The Schooldays of Jesus, is now available from Viking. Late Essays: 2006-2016 will be available January 2018. J.M. Coetzee: What relationship do I have with my life history? Am I its conscious author, or should I think of myself as simply a voice uttering with as little interference as possible a stream of words welling up from my interior? Arabella Kurtz: One way of thinking about psychoanalysis is to say that it is aimed at setting free the narrative or autobiographical imagination. The Good Story is a fascinating dialogue about psychotherapy and the art of storytelling between a writer with a long-standing interest in moral psychology and a psychotherapist with training in literary studies. Coetzee and Kurtz consider psychotherapy and its wider social context from different perspectives, but at the heart of both of their approaches is a concern with narrative. Working alone, the writer is in control of the story he or she tells. The therapist, on the other hand, collaborates with the patient in developing an account of the patient''s life and identity that is both meaningful and true. In a meeting of minds that is illuminating and thought-provoking, the authors discuss both individual psychology and the psychology of the group: the school classroom, gangs and the settler nation, in which the brutal deeds of ancestors are accommodated into a national story. Drawing on great writers like Cervantes and Dostoevsky and psychoanalysts like Freud and Melanie Klein, Coetzee and Kurtz explore the human capacity for self-examination, our wish to tell our own life stories and the resistances we encounter along the way.

Elizabeth Costello, romancière vieillissante, doit sa célébrité à un livre publié il y a 25 ans. Aujourd''hui, elle parcourt le monde pour donner des conférences sur des bateaux de croisière et dans des colloques huppés. Malgré la fatigue, elle doit assurer le spectacle... J.M. Coetzee nous dresse le vibrant portrait d''une vieille dame déboussolée, rongée par le doute et l''interrogation sur le pouvoir de la littérature face à la solitude et à la mort.

From the international prize-winning author of "Disgrace" comes a collection of 29 literary essays on the great German Modernists (Rilke, Kafka, Musil), on South African writing, and on such international fiction-writers of our times as Borges, Mahfouz, Mulisch, Skvorecky, Oz, and Rushdie.

The first of three volumes featuring Nobel Prize winner J. M. Coetzee''s essays on some of the world’s most celebrated writers.

A masterful new novel completes an incomparable trilogy from J. M. Coetzee, Nobel laureate and two-times winner of the Booker Prize In The Childhood of Jesus, Simòn found a boy, David, and they began life in a new land, together with a woman named Inès. In The Schooldays of Jesus, the small family searched for a home in which David could thrive. In The Death of Jesus, David, now a tall ten-year-old, is spotted by Julio Fabricante, the director of a local orphanage, playing football with his friends in the street. He shows unusual talent. When David announces that he wants to go and live with Julio and the children in his care, Simòn and Inès are stunned. David is leaving them, and they can only love him and bear witness. With almost unbearable poignancy J. M. Coetzee explores the meaning of a world empty of memory but brimming with questions.

The acceptance speech delivered by the winner of the 2003 Noble Prize for Literature, and the enigmatic short story "He and His Man" which Coetzee recited during his speech, are brought together in this volume.

Auf den ersten Blick scheint dieser Roman nichts mit Schwarzafrika zu tun zu haben. Susan Barton, von meuternden Matrosen auf einer Insel irgendwo im Atlantik ausgesetzt, trifft auf Robinson und Freitag. Doch anders als in dem berühmten Roman von Defoe gibt es auf der Insel keine Abenteuer zu bestehen, gibt es keine wilden Tiere und keine Kannibalen. Robinson, bei Coetzee ein alter Mann, ist nicht sonderlich erfolgreich bei der Feldbestellung. Er konnte Freitag auch nichts beibringen, denn Freitag war stumm. Schließlich wird das Trio gerettet (Robinson hat gar keine Lust mehr, in die Zivilisation zurückzukehren und stirbt auf der Rückreise nach London). Susan Barton, in Begleitung von Freitag, will jetzt vom Schriftsteller Foe ihre Geschichte aufschreiben lassen, die Geschichte der ''ersten englischen Schiffbrüchigen''. Mr. Foe hat als professioneller Schreiber freilich ganz andere Vorstellungen von der (Aus-)Gestaltung der Geschichte als die Erzählerin. Eigentliche Hauptperson ist Freitag, der wichtigste Zeuge, der steht aber nicht zur Verfügung, er kann nicht sprechen. Ihm hatte man - wie den Schwarzen in Südafrika - die Sprache gestohlen.

Nadine Gordimer has written of J.M. Coetzee that his 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 elegance. Doubling the Point takes the reader to the center of that vision. These essays and interviews, documenting Coetzee''s longtime engagement with his own culture, and with modern culture in general, constitute a literary autobiography.

An eminent, seventy-two-year-old Australian writer is invited to contribute to a book entitled Strong Opinions. It is a chance to air some urgent concerns. He writes short essays on the origins of the state, on Machiavelli, on anarchism, on al Qaida, on intelligent design, on music. What, he asks, is the origin of the state and the nature of the relationship between citizen and state? How should the citizen of a modern democracy react to the state''s willingness to set aside moral considerations and civil liberties in its war on terror, a war that includes the use of torture? How does the state handle outsiders? The treatment of asylum seekers at the Baxter facility in the South Australian desert brings to his mind Guantanamo Bay. He is troubled by Australia''s complicity with America and Britain in their wars in the Middle East; an obscure sense of dishonour clings to him. In the laundry-room of his apartment block he encounters an alluring young woman. When he discovers she is ''between jobs'' he claims failing eyesight and offers her work typing up his manuscript. Anya has no interest in politics but the job provides a distraction, as does the writer''s evident and not unwelcome attraction toward her. Her boyfriend, Alan, an investment consultant who understands the world in harsh neo-liberal economic terms, has reservations about his trophy girlfriend spending time with this 1960s throwback. Taking a lively interest in his affairs, Alan begins to formulate a plan. Diary of a Bad Year is an utterly contemporary work of fiction from one of our greatest writers and deepest thinkers. It addresses the profound unease of countless people in democracies across the world.