J.M. Coetzee, página 4 de 12

«Los ensayos aquí recogidos constituyen una tentativa de comprender una pasión con la cual no tengo ninguna afinidad intuitiva, la pasión que se expresa en actos de silenciamiento y censura. También

J.M. Coetzee A 72-year-old Australian writer encounters an alluring woman in his apartment block. 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.

J.M. CoetzeeCoetzee explores the work of twentieth century German literatures greatest writers, an essay on Graham Greenes Brighton Rock and on the short fiction of Samuel Beckett. American literature is also strongly represented and Coetzee rounds off the collection with essays on three fellow Nobel laureates.

Meisterhaft und uberraschend erzahlt der Nobelpreistrager J. M.Coetzee in seinem ersten Roman seit dem Welterfolg "Schande" von der Liebe im Zeichen der Reife: Paul Rayments Leben ist aus den Fugen geraten, als sich Elizabeth Costello unverhofft bei ihm einnistet. Seinen Reflexionen stellt sie Lebenspraxis entgegen, seiner Radikalitat liebevollen Spott. Doch um Rettung ist es ihm nicht zu tun ...

Diario de un mal a#o, lleva a cabo, con un tono #ntimo y cargado de veracidad, la disecci#n de las emociones m#s complejas. Con una escritura estimulante y espl#ndida, construye un atlas de las miserias (pero tambi#n de la dignidad) del alma humana. Un eminente escritor australiano es invitado a colaborar en un volumen de ensayos titulado Opiniones contundentes. Esta oportunidad le permite abordar varios temas de su inter#s: los or#genes del Estado, la figura de Maquiavelo, el anarquismo, Al Qaeda, el dise#o inteligente o la m#sica. Mientras redacta los textos, el viejo escritor conoce a Anya, una atractiva joven que vive en el mismo bloque de pisos. Pronto sabe que Anya est# buscando trabajo y le propone que mecanograf#e sus manuscritos. La aparici#n de Alan, el novio de Anya, cambiar# el rumbo de la relaci#n entre la joven y el escritor. Rese#as: "La mente #tica de Coetzee sigue siendo atractiva por lo que tiene de ejemplar en un tiempo despojado de ejemplaridad."Robert Saladrigas, Cultura/s, La Vanguardia "Las luminosas y desconcertantes novelas de J. M. Coetzee revelan que la verdad es siempre extranjera."Javier Mar#as

In addition to being one of the most acclaimed and accomplished fiction writers in the world, Nobel Prize winner J. M. Coetzee is also a literary critic of the highest caliber. In this collection of twenty essays, Coetzee examines the work of some of the twentieth-century's greatest writers-from Samuel Beckett and Günter Grass to Gabriel García Márquez and Philip Roth. Brilliantly insightful, challenging yet accessible, these pieces demonstrate Coetzee's sharp eye and unwavering critical acumen. Written with great clarity and precision, they offer a window into twenty immortal texts that will be of major interest to all readers of international literature, as well as to Coetzee's many fans.

Elizabeth Costello is an Australian writer of international renown; she is feted, studied, honoured. Famous principally for an early novel that established her reputation and from which, it seems, she will never escape, she has reached the stage, late in life, where her remaining function is to be venerated and applauded. One of a new breed of intellectual nomads, her life has become a series of engagements in sterile conference rooms throughout the world - a private consciousness obliged to reveal itself to a curious public: the presentation of a major award at an American college where she is required to deliver a lecture; a sojourn as the writer in residence on a cruise liner during which she encounters a fellow guest lecturer, an African poet also employed to divert the passengers; a visit to her sister, a missionary in Africa, who is receiving an honorary degree, an occasion which both recognise as the final opportunity for effecting some form of reconciliation; and a disquieting appearance at a writers'' conference in Amsterdam where she finds the subject of her talk unexpectedly amongst the audience. She has made her life''s work the study of other people yet now it is she who is the object of scrutiny. But, for her, what matters is the continuing search for a means of articulating her vision and the verdict of future generations. Elizabeth Costello is a humane, moral, and uncompromising creation; J. M. Coetzee''s latest work of fiction offers us a profound and delicate vision of literary celebrity, artistry and the private life of the mind.

J. 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.

en 1986, au cap, elizabeth curren se meurt d'un cancer, et elle est brutalement confrontée à l'explosion de rage que le système de l'apartheid a engendrée. dans une longue lettre à sa fille exilée en amérique, elizabeth relate les événements qui ponctuent ses derniers jours. témoin de l'émeute et de la répression dans un township voisin, elle découvre le corps criblé de balles du fils de sa domestique noire, et assiste à l'exécution par la police d'un autre adolescent... parvenue au terme de son existence, avec pour ange de la mort et confident un clochard réfugié chez elle, elizabeth tentera de faire sa paix avec le monde. avec ces quelques jours dans la vie d'une vieille dame qui prend conscience des revendications de la jeunesse noire, j. m. coetzee nous offre à sa manière grave, lancinante, un chef d'oeuvre.

Foe es una obra maestra ,así lo han señalado muchos críticos y escritores, que fue publicada en España en 1986. La narradora de esta espléndida novela es Susan Barton, una mujer que sobrevive a un naufragio y se encuentra en una isla desiertacon Robinson Crusoe y su esclavo mudo, Viernes. Es ella quien le lleva la historia del amo y el sirviente al escritor ingles DanielDefoe, cuya traicion literaria ilustra no solo la crueldad y el orgullo del artista, servidor de una verdad superior, sino la viva encarnacion del dilema Viernes-Robinson. Foe es la novela mas breve de Coetzee. La reescritura del clasico del Robison Crusoe de Daniel Defoe, da voz a una nueva version de la historia. La evolucion del personaje central, la narracion epistolar, la maestria con que se logra reflejar la frustracion de los personajes y el suspense que se construye a lo largo de estas paginas, convierten a Foe en un texto ambicioso y muy entretenido

"Coetzee stirs our imaginations by confronting us with an articulate, intelligent, aging, and increasingly alienated novelist who cannot help but be exasperated with her fellow human beings, many of them academics, who are unnecessarily cruel to animals, and apparently (but not admittedly) committed to cruelty. The story urges us to reconceive our devotion to reason as a universal value.

Un magistrato bianco, che per decenni si e occupato degli eventi del piccoloinsediamento di frontiera in cui vive, ignorando la guerra tra i barbari el''Impero che pure incombe sulla cittadina, si trova all''improvviso aconfrontarsi con la realta: dapprima comincia a simpatizzare con i prigionieriangariati durante gli interrogatori, poi si innamora di una di loro, unabarbara. Tanto l''amore quanto la dura condizione carceraria lo spingono acompiere, finalmente, un atto di ribellione.

Elizabeth Costello is an Australian writer of international renown. Famous principally for an early novel that established her reputation, she has reached the stage where her remaining function is to be venerated and applauded. Her life has become a series of engagements in sterile conference rooms throughout the world - a private consciousness obliged to reveal itself to a curious public: the presentation of a major award at an American college where she is required to deliver a lecture; a sojourn as the writer in residence on a cruise liner; a visit to her sister, a missionary in Africa, who is receiving an honorary degree, an occasion which both recognise as the final opportunity for effecting some form of reconciliation; and a disquieting appearance at a writers'' conference in Amsterdam where she finds the subject of her talk unexpectedly amongst the audience. She has made her life''s work the study of other people yet now it is she who is the object of scrutiny. But, for her, what matters is the continuing search for a means of articulating her vision and the verdict of future generations.

In un Sudafrica sconvolto dalla guerra civile, Michael K. (ogni riferimento aKafka è ovviamente voluto) costruisce un carro per riaccompagnare la madremalata nel suo Eden evanescente: un pezzettino di terra in campagna dove hatrascorso un'infanzia felice. Il viaggio è clandestino, fra militari allosbando, freddo e intemperie. Finché K. è costretto a far ricoverare la madre,ma nessuno l'assiste e quando muore viene cremata senza che il figlio vengaconsultato. Con le ceneri in un sacchetto di plastica, K. raggiunge comunqueil luogo d'incanto, un fertile nulla, una fattoria abbandonata sfuggita alcontrollo ossessivo del regime, dove si sente, per la prima volta, libero. Mala guerra saprà raggiungerlo anche nel suo minuscolo paradiso privato.

A calamitous cycling accident results in the amputation of Paul Rayment''s leg. His feelings for his nurse, 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.