Bookbot

John Maxwell Coetzee

    9 février 1940
    John Maxwell Coetzee
    Cripplewood / Kreupelhout
    J.M. Coetzee
    This Is Not a Border
    Foe
    Disgrâce
    Scènes de la vie d'un jeune garçon
    • Scènes de la vie d'un jeune garçon

      • 192pages
      • 7 heures de lecture

      Depuis la parution en 1982 de ses œuvres saluées, John Michael Coetzee a toujours montré une réticence à sortir de l'ombre. Pour la première fois, il revisite l'Afrique du Sud d'il y a cinquante ans, à la recherche de la fraîcheur et de la spontanéité de son enfance. Cette évocation autobiographique plonge dans les hantises et les secrets d'un enfant brillant à l'école, mais despote et irascible à la maison, qui se cherche entre un père qu'il méprise et une mère dont il craint de perdre l'amour. Il navigue entre deux cultures et deux langues, pressentant un monde troublant. Dans cette période de sa vie, qu'il faut "endurer en grinçant les dents", il découvre l'autre - Afrikaner, Anglais, métis, noir, juif - ainsi que les préjugés et injustices qui les entourent. Il perçoit le mystère du sadisme et du désir. Déjà, il sait que ce qu'il écrira sera plus sombre, quelque chose qui, une fois coulé sur la page, se répandra comme de l'encre renversée, évoquant des ombres dans l'eau calme et des éclairs zébrant le ciel.

      Scènes de la vie d'un jeune garçon
      3,8
    • Disgrâce

      • 272pages
      • 10 heures de lecture

      Agé de 52 ans et deux fois divorcé, David Lurie enseigne à l'université du Cap. Encore jeune de corps et de cœur, ce Don Juan du campus se laisse aller à un dernier élan de désir, d'amour peut-être, avec une jeune étudiante. Mais l'aventure tourne mal. Convaincu de harcèlement sexuel, David Lurie démissionne. Réfugié auprès de sa fille Lucy, dans une ferme isolée, il tente de retrouver un sens au seul lien qui compte encore à ses yeux. Mais les temps ont changé. La fracture sociale est arrivée jusqu'au cœur de ce pays et la violence n'épargne pas les campagnes. L'idylle pastorale tourne au cauchemar. Aussi sombre que magnifique, l'élégie cynique de J. M. Coetzee jette une lumière glacée et crépusculaire sur la nation arc-en-ciel et consigne l'avènement d'un nouvel âge de fer.

      Disgrâce
      3,8
    • Foe

      • 192pages
      • 7 heures de lecture

      Fable, allégorie, palimpseste littéraire, ce roman explore et interprète les extrêmes vers lesquels nos vies sont poussées, à travers les relations imaginées entre l'auteur et Daniel Foe alias Defoe

      Foe
      3,2
    • This Is Not a Border

      • 352pages
      • 13 heures de lecture

      "The Palestine Festival of Literature was established in 2008. Bringiong together writers from all corners of the globe, it aims to help Palestinians break the cultural siege imposed by the Isreali military occupation, to strengthen their artistic links with the the rest of the world."--Book flap

      This Is Not a Border
      4,5
    • J.M. Coetzee

      • 192pages
      • 7 heures de lecture

      Author J.M. Coetzee sold his house in Cape Town, unaware that he was leaving behind unique documents from his teenage years. In the attic of his former home, the new owners discovered a forgotten brown suitcase and a large cardboard box, containing a complete photographic archive of old prints and negatives from Coetzee’s childhood never seen before. The book also has an exclusive interview with John Coetzee about his boyhood and photo experiments.

      J.M. Coetzee
      4,2
    • Cripplewood / Kreupelhout

      • 126pages
      • 5 heures de lecture

      Berlinde De Bruyckere (b 1964) is a Belgian artist who specializes in sculpture using various media, including wax, wood, wool, and horse skin and hair. Published to coincide with De Bruyckere's participation in the 2013 Venice Biennale, this illustrated catalogue traces her work from conception to installation.

      Cripplewood / Kreupelhout
      4,2
    • Late Essays, 2006-2017

      • 304pages
      • 11 heures de lecture

      A new collection of twenty-three literary essays from the Nobel Prize–winning author. J. M. Coetzee’s latest novel, The Schooldays of Jesus, is now available from Viking. J. M. Coetzee is not only one of the most acclaimed fiction writers in the world, he is also an accomplished and insightful literary critic. In Late Essays: 2006–2016, a thought-provoking collection of twenty-three pieces, he examines the work of some of the world’s greatest writers, from Daniel Defoe in the early eighteenth century to Goethe and Irène Némirovsky to Coetzee’s contemporary Philip Roth. Challenging yet accessible, literary master Coetzee writes these essays with great clarity and precision, offering readers an illuminating and wise analysis of a remarkable list of works of international literature that span three centuries.

      Late Essays, 2006-2017
      3,7
    • The Death of Jesus

      • 208pages
      • 8 heures de lecture

      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 Death of Jesus
      4,0
    • Giving Offense

      Essays on Censorship

      • 297pages
      • 11 heures de lecture

      J.M. Coetzee presents a coherent, unorthodox analysis of censorship from the perspective of one who has lived and worked under its shadow. The essays collected here attempt to understand the passion that plays itself out in acts of silencing and censoring. He argues that a destructive dynamic of belligerence and escalation tends to overtake the rivals in any field ruled by censorship. From Osip Mandelstam commanded to compose an ode in praise of Stalin, to Breyten Breytenbach writing poems under and for the eyes of his prison guards, to Aleksander Solzhenitsyn engaging in a trial of wits with the organs of the Soviet state, Giving Offense focuses on the ways authors have historically responded to censorship. It also analyzes the arguments of Catharine MacKinnon for the suppression of pornography and traces the operations of the old South African censorship system.

      Giving Offense
      4,0
    • Inner Workings

      • 256pages
      • 9 heures de lecture

      Coetzee's essays from 1986 to 1999, Inner Workings gathers together his literary essays from 2000 to 2005. Coetzee further explores the work of six of twentieth-century German literature's greatest writers: Robert Musil, Robert Walser, Walter Benjamin (the Arcades Project), Joseph Roth, Gunter Grass, W.G.

      Inner Workings
      3,9
    • Late Essays

      • 304pages
      • 11 heures de lecture

      A 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

      Late Essays
      4,0
    • Waiting for the Barbarians

      • 176pages
      • 7 heures de lecture

      A magistrate in a country village protests the army's treatment of members of the barbarian tribes taken prisoner during a civil war and finds himself arrested as a traitor.

      Waiting for the Barbarians
      4,0
    • Stranger Shores

      Essays, 1986-1999

      • 374pages
      • 14 heures de lecture

      J.M Coetzee is, without question, one of the world's greatest novelists. Now his many admirers will have the pleasure of reading his significant body of literacy criticism. 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 T.S Eliot, Johann Sebastian Bach and Zbigniew Herbert. His subjects range from the great eighteenth and nineteenth century writer 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 Haryy Mulisch, Joseph Brodsky, Jorge Luis Borges, Salman Rushdie, Amos Oz, Naguib Mahfouz, Nadine Gordimer and Doris Lessing.

      Stranger Shores
      3,9
    • Scenes from Provincial Life

      • 496pages
      • 18 heures de lecture

      Coetzee's majestic trilogy of fictionalised memoir, Boyhood, Youth and SummertimeIt opens in a small town in the South Africa of the 1940s. As he interviews important figures in Coetzee's life, a portrait emerges of an awkward outsider who - even after death - remains dogged by rumours.

      Scenes from Provincial Life
      3,8
    • Here and now : letters 2008-2011

      • 256pages
      • 9 heures de lecture

      Although 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.

      Here and now : letters 2008-2011
      3,7
    • Age of Iron

      • 198pages
      • 7 heures de lecture

      In Cape Town, South Africa, an old woman is dying of cancer. A classics professor, Mrs. Curren has been opposed to the lies and brutality of apartheid all her life, but has lived insulated from its true horrors. Now she is suddenly forced to come to terms with the iron-hearted rage that the system has wrought. In an extended letter addressed to her daughter, who has long since fled to America, Mrs. Curren recounts the strange events of her dying days. She witnesses the burning of a nearby black township and discovers the bullet-riddled body of her servant's son. A teenage black activist hiding in her house is killed by security forces. And through it all, her only companion, the only person to whom she can confess her mounting anger and despair, is a homeless man, an alcoholic, who one day appears on her doorstep. Brilliantly crafted and resonant with metaphor, Age of Iron is "a superbly realized novel whose truths cut to the bone." ( The New York Times Book Review )

      Age of Iron
      3,9
    • Landscape with Rowers

      • 104pages
      • 4 heures de lecture

      This volume--featuring Coetzee's finely wrought English translations side-by-side with the originals--brings the work of six of the most important modern and contemporary Dutch poets to light.

      Landscape with Rowers
      3,4
    • The Confusions of Young Törless

      • 208pages
      • 8 heures de lecture

      Set in a boarding school in a remote area of the Habsburg Empire at the turn of the last century, The Confusions of Young Torless is an intense study of an adolescent's psychological development as he struggles to come to terms with his conflicting emotions. Through his relationship with two other boys Torless is led into sadistic and sexual encounters with a third pupil which both repel and fascinate him. Estranged from everyday life, Torless gradually learns to accept his experiences and describe them with analytical precision.

      The Confusions of Young Törless
      3,8
    • Summertime

      • 272pages
      • 10 heures de lecture

      Summertime is an inventive and inspired work of fiction that allows J.M. Coetzee to imagine his own life with a critical and unsparing eye, revealing painful moral struggles and attempts to come to grips with what it means to care for another human being.A young English biographer is researching a book about the late South African writer John Coetzee, focusing on Coetzee in his thirties, at a time when he was living in a rundown cottage in the Cape Town suburbs with his widowed father - a time, the biographer is convinced, when Coetzee was finding himself as a writer. Never having met the man himself, the biographer interviews five people who knew Coetzee well, including a married woman with whom he had an affair, his cousin Margot, and a Brazilian dancer whose daughter took English lessons with him. These accounts add up to an image of an awkward, reserved, and bookish young man who finds it hard to make meaningful connections with the people around him. Summertime is an inventive and inspired work of fiction that allows J.M. Coetzee to imagine his own life with a critical and unsparing eye, revealing painful moral struggles and attempts to come to grips with what it means to care for another human being. Incisive, elegant, and often surprisingly funny, Summertime is a compelling work by one of today's most esteemed writers.

      Summertime
      3,8
    • Youth

      • 169pages
      • 6 heures de lecture

      A searing portrait of a young colonial in early 1960s London – from the two-time winner of the Booker Prize. Set against the background of the 1960s - Sharpeville, the Cuban missile crisis, Vietnam – Youth is a remarkable portrait of a consciousness, isolated and adrift, turning in on itself. The narrator of Youth, a student in the South Africa of the 1950s, studies mathematics, reads poetry, saves money, trying to ensure that when he escapes to the real world, wherever that may be, he will be prepared to experience life to its full intensity and transform it into art. Arriving 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. An awkward colonial, a constitutional outsider, he begins a dark pilgrimage in which he is continually tested and continually found wanting.

      Youth
      3,8
    • The Life and Times of Michael K

      • 192pages
      • 7 heures de lecture

      Coetzee here tells the story of a handicapped young man who has worked as a municipal gardener in Cape Town. His mother is dying, and she wishes to return to her birthplace out in the veldt. Without the required transit passes, mother and son set out on a journey that will end in death for her and in a new but temporary life on an abandoned farm for him. His respite in isolation and peace does not last long, however; grotesque reality soon returns to trouble this quiet new world. Against the solitude of this private drama, Coetzee paints an eloquent and pained picture of his homeland and of the bureaucrats, doctors, army deserters, and camp guards who reveal the stress and qualms of their existence and who uneasily sense that there is no conclusion to their troubles and no future for their lives.

      The Life and Times of Michael K
      3,8
    • In the Heart of the Country

      • 160pages
      • 6 heures de lecture

      Stifled by the torpor of colonial South Africa and trapped in a web of reciprocal oppression, a lonely sheep farmer seeks comfort in the arms of a black concubine. But when his embittered spinster daughter Magda feels shamed, this lurch across the racial divide marks the end of a tenuous feudal peace. As she dreams madly of bloody revenge, Magda's consciousness starts to drift and the line between fact and the workings of her excited imagination becomes blurred. What follows is the fable of a woman's passionate, obsessed and violent response to an Africa that will not heed her.

      In the Heart of the Country
      3,8
    • The Pole and Other Stories

      • 272pages
      • 10 heures de lecture

      A poignant exploration of love and the complexities of human relationships unfolds through the eyes of pianist Witold, whose deep infatuation with Beatriz transforms their lives. The narrative delves into the emotional intricacies and evolving dynamics between the characters, highlighting how passion can reshape identities and connections.

      The Pole and Other Stories
      3,8
    • Here and Now

      • 256pages
      • 9 heures de lecture

      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.

      Here and Now
      3,7
    • In her later years, novelist Elizabeth Costello becomes consumed by the idea of human cruelty to animals, leading her to avoid eye contact with others. To her, meat-eating humans are complicit in a vast crime occurring in farms, slaughterhouses, and laboratories worldwide. Her son, a physics professor, admires her literary work but fears her animal rights lectures at his college. His colleagues challenge her views on the value of life beyond human reasoning, while his wife criticizes her vegetarianism as moral superiority. During a dinner following her first lecture, guests express a mix of sympathy and skepticism regarding animal rights, engaging in discussions that span philosophical, anthropological, and religious perspectives. For her son, Costello's demeanor is both offensive and oddly resonant. J. M. Coetzee uses fiction to delve into the complexities of animal rights, capturing Costello's sense of mortality and her alienation from humans, including her family. Presented as a Tanner Lecture at Princeton University, the narrative reflects the emotional weight of discussing contentious issues in an academic setting. The text features an introduction by political philosopher Amy Gutmann and responses from various scholars, including Wendy Doniger, Barbara Smuts, Marjorie Garber, and Peter Singer. Together, the lecture-fable and essays examine the profound social implications of moral conflict and confrontation.

      The University Center for Human Values Series: The Lives of Animals
      3,7
    • The Master of Petersburg

      • 256pages
      • 9 heures de lecture

      WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE FOR LITERATURE 2003 In The Master of Petersburg J. M. Coetzee dares to imagine the life of Dostoevsky. Set in 1869, when Dostoevsky was summoned from Germany to St Petersburg by the sudden death of his stepson, this novel is at once a compelling mystery steeped in the atmosphere of pre-revolutionary Russia and a brilliant and courageous meditation on authority and rebellion, art and imagination. Dostoevsky is seen obsessively following his stepson's ghost, trying to ascertain whether he was a suicide or a murder victim and whether he loved or despised his stepfather.

      The Master of Petersburg
      3,6
    • The Good Story

      Exchanges on Truth, Fiction and Psychotherapy

      • 198pages
      • 7 heures de lecture

      J.M. Coetzee and Arabella Kurtz engage in a compelling dialogue about psychotherapy and storytelling, exploring the relationship between personal narrative and identity. Coetzee questions whether he is the conscious author of his life story or merely a voice expressing inner thoughts. Kurtz suggests that psychoanalysis aims to liberate the autobiographical imagination. Their discussion reveals how narrative shapes both individual psychology and broader social contexts, including classrooms, gangs, and national identities that incorporate the legacies of ancestors. While the writer controls their narrative, the therapist collaborates with the patient to create a meaningful account of their life. The authors draw on literary figures like Cervantes and Dostoevsky, alongside psychoanalysts such as Freud and Melanie Klein, to examine the human desire for self-examination and the challenges faced in articulating personal stories. This meeting of minds is both illuminating and thought-provoking, highlighting the complexities of narrative in understanding ourselves and our place in the world.

      The Good Story
      3,6
    • A famous writer is commissioned to contribute to a book of essays called Strong Opinions when he meets a young woman who lives in his apartment tower. He asks her to become his . . . In the laundry room of her apartment block a young woman makes the acquaintance of an ageing writer. She agrees to type up his opinions, although she is aware that what he really desires . . . The young woman's boyfriend starts to spy on his neighbour and hatches a jealous plot to . . . J. M. Coetzee's Diary of a Bad Year was shortlisted for the 2008 NSW Premier's Literary Award, Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, and was shortlisted for the Award for Fiction and Award for Innovation at the 2008 SA Festival Awards for Literature. It is an extraordinary and utterly original novel about loneliness, friendship and the possibility of love. Diary of a Bad Year takes the reader from Australian democracy to Guantanamo Bay, from the meaning of dishonour to the creative truth of dreams. Written in a wholly innovative form for three simultaneous voices, Diary of a Bad Year is enthralling, unexpected and deeply moving.

      Diary of a Bad Year
      3,6
    • Oxford World's Classics: Robinson Crusoe

      • 306pages
      • 11 heures de lecture

      Robinson Crusoe (1719) is one of the most famous adventure stories ever written. The account of a sailor shipwrecked on a desert island for twenty-eight years, it is also a tale of mythic proportions, an allegory, and a spiritual autobiography.

      Oxford World's Classics: Robinson Crusoe
      3,5
    • The Lives of Animals

      • 144pages
      • 6 heures de lecture

      In her later years, novelist Elizabeth Costello becomes consumed by the idea of human cruelty to animals, leading her to avoid eye contact with others. She perceives meat-eaters as conspirators in a vast crime occurring in farms, slaughterhouses, and laboratories worldwide. Her son, a physics professor, admires her literary accomplishments but dreads her animal rights lectures at his college, where her views are met with skepticism. Colleagues challenge her assertion that human reasoning is overrated and that life's value isn't diminished by the inability to reason. At a dinner following her lecture, guests express a range of reactions to animal rights, sparking discussions that touch on philosophical, anthropological, and religious themes. While her son finds her views offensive and eccentric, he also recognizes their unsettling validity. Nobel Prize-winning author J.M. Coetzee uses fiction to explore the complexities of animal rights through Costello's experiences of mortality, compassion for animals, and alienation from humanity, including her family. Presented as a Tanner Lecture at Princeton University, the narrative engages with literature, philosophy, and deep convictions, followed by responses from prominent thinkers. Coetzee's work, alongside essays from various scholars, delves into the social ramifications of moral conflict and confrontation.

      The Lives of Animals
      3,5
    • The Pole

      A Novel

      • 176pages
      • 7 heures de lecture

      J. M. Coetzee's writing is marked by its sparse yet impactful style, showcasing his status as a provocative and influential author. In this work, he invites readers to confront their assumptions about love and truth, employing sharp wit to engage with the uncomfortable realities often overlooked. Through his characteristic insight, Coetzee compels an examination of deep-seated beliefs, urging a re-evaluation of what we accept as truth in our lives.

      The Pole
      3,6
    • LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2016 Selected as a Book of the Year 2016 in the Observer and Daily Telegraph 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. Dav�d is the small boy who is always asking questions. Sim�n and In�s 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 Bol�var to watch over him. But he'll be seven soon and he should be at school. And so, Dav�d 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.

      The schooldays of Jesus
      3,6
    • A man and a boy arrive in a new land. The man catches sight of a woman he is certain is the boy's mother, and persuades her to assume the role. The boy is an exceptional child, but the school authorities insist he be sent to a special school far away, so the trio flees across the mountains. This is a profound, beautiful and surprising novel from Booker Prize and Nobel Prize winner, J.M. Coetzee.

      The Childhood of Jesus
      3,4
    • Slow Man

      Slow Man: A Novel

      • 256pages
      • 9 heures de lecture

      After a life-altering cycling accident leads to the amputation of his leg, Paul Rayment grapples with complex emotions for his nurse and her attractive teenage son. His world is further disrupted by the unexpected visit of renowned Australian novelist Elizabeth Costello, who seeks to influence both his recovery and romantic entanglements. The interplay of personal struggles and external influences shapes a poignant narrative about love, loss, and the quest for direction in life.

      Slow Man
      3,5
    • Dusklands

      • 144pages
      • 6 heures de lecture

      This work contains two novellas. In the first, a specialist in psychological warfare is driven to murderous action by the stresses of a macabre project to win the Vietnam War, and in the second, a megalomaniac Boer frontiersman wreaks hideous vengeance on a Hottentot tribe.

      Dusklands
      3,4
    • Elizabeth Costello

      • 224pages
      • 8 heures de lecture

      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.

      Elizabeth Costello
      3,3
    • Carry me down

      • 256pages
      • 9 heures de lecture

      John Egan is a misfit, a 12-year-old in the body of a grown man with the voice of a giant who insists on the ridiculous truth. He has been able to detect lies for as long as he can remember and diligently keeps track of them, large and small, in a log of lies. With an obsession for the Guinness Book of World Records, a keenly inquisitive mind, and a kind of faith, John is like a tuning fork, sensitive to the vibrations within himself and his family's shifting dynamics, remaining hopeful despite the unfortunate cards life deals him.

      Carry me down
      3,3
    • Eine gute Geschichte

      Ein Gespräch über Wahrheit, Erfindung und Psychotherapie

      • 256pages
      • 9 heures de lecture

      »Die Geschichten, die wir über uns selbst erzählen, mögen nicht wahr sein, aber sie sind alles, was wir haben.« Wir alle erzählen Geschichten - Schriftsteller alleine für sich, wir für andere, gemeinsam mit einem Therapeuten, um das Rätsel unserer Biographie zu lösen. Wir sind von Geschichten umstellt und spinnen sie in einem fort. Doch steckt überhaupt eine Wahrheit hinter den Varianten, Versuchen, Projektionen? J. M. Coetzee geht in seinem Austausch und Briefwechsel mit der Psychotherapeutin Arabella Kurtz diesen Fragen nach. Ausgehend von seiner eigenen Arbeit, mit Exkursen zu Dostojewskij und Cervantes sowie Rückgriffen auf das eigene Leben, diskutieren sie Antworten in dem von Sigmund Freud und Melanie Klein abgesteckten Feld. »Coetzees Stil ist wie immer eindringlich und konzentriert ... Kurtz erweckt die psychoanalytischen Konzepte und Praxis mit einer seltenen Präzision und Unmittelbarkeit zum Leben.« Literary Review

      Eine gute Geschichte
      5,0
    • Elisabeth Costello

      • 266pages
      • 10 heures de lecture

      Kim jesteś, Elizabeth Costello? Matka, siostra, kochanka, pisarka, Australijka. Niekonwencjonalna starsza pani. Kontrowersyjna wykładowczyni o ciętym języku. Zatroskana kondycją świata i pochylająca się nad losem zwierząt świadoma siebie kobieta. Najbardziej rozpoznawalna postać stworzona przez J.M. Coetzee’go, uznana za jego porte-parole. Przełamująca granice gatunków Elizabeth Costello od ponad dwudziestu lat prowokuje i inspiruje, wymykając się jednoznacznym ocenom. Obok tej książki nie sposób przejść obojętnie.

      Elisabeth Costello
      3,5
    • Ein Haus in Spanien

      Drei Geschichten

      Flüchtig und spröde, leuchtend und skeptisch, verschattet und schön – die drei Meistererzählungen J. M. Coetzees ›Ein Haus in Spanien‹, ›Nietverloren‹ und ›Er und sein Mann‹ in einem Band. Die unverhoffte Wiederbegegnung mit einem Ort aus der Kindheit, das Wiederkennen einer existentiellen Situation, die Sehnsucht nach einem autarken Leben: Das alles wird zum Beginn erzählerischer Meditationen, die in den Falten der Geschichten, in dem, was sie verbergen, eine Wahrheit finden. Flüchtig und spröde, leuchtend und skeptisch, verschattet und schön – eine Erzählung des zurückgekehrten Robinson Crusoe beschließt diesen Band. Heimgekehrte Schiffbrüchige – vielleicht ist das eine der vielen Signaturen von Coetzees rätselhaftem Werk.

      Ein Haus in Spanien
      3,7
    • Von hier nach da

      Briefe 2008-2011

      2008, kurz nachdem sie sich in Australien begegnet waren, schrieb J. M. Coetzee an Paul Auster in New York und bot ihm an, gemeinsam einen Briefwechsel zu führen. Bis 2011 debattieren sie freimütig sie über den Lauf der Welt: von Tennis bis Vatersein, von erotischer Attraktion bis Finanzkrise, von Hochzeit zu Liebe. Scharfsinnig denken sie über unsere Gegenwart nach und bieten dem Leser in ihren manchmal ausgelassenen Briefen Einblick in ihr Leben und ein ungeschütztes Porträt ihrer Freundschaft. Und sie erklären, warum es manchmal besser ist, Laub zu harken, als Romane zu lesen.

      Von hier nach da
      3,3
    • Elizabeth Costello, eine Romanautorin, wird im Alter zunehmend von der Grausamkeit der Menschen gegenüber Tieren bedrängt. Sie hinterfragt die Rechte der Tiere und die Pflichten der Menschen in einer Debatte, die ihren Sohn, einen Physikprofessor, in eine schwierige Lage bringt. J. M. Coetzee thematisiert die Würde der Kreatur.

      Das Leben der Tiere. Mit der Erzählung 'Ein Bericht für eine Akademie' von Franz Kafka. Aus d. Engl. v. Reinhild Böhnke
      3,1
    • V srdci země

      • 156pages
      • 6 heures de lecture

      Hrdinka kruté a vášnivé novely, dcera majitele zapadlé farmy v Jižní Africe, pozoruje a komentuje život, z něhož jako by ji osud nadobro vyloučil. Její necitelný otec ji přehlíží, služebnictvo se jí bojí, ale současně jí pohrdá. Tato hořce moudrá, vzdělaná, inteligentní žena však svou zdánlivou pokorou a poddajností zastírá svoje zoufalé odhodlání nestát se jednou ze „ztracených pro historii“. Když si její otec najde africkou milenku, vrhne se zběsile do přípravy pomsty – jako by šlo o prazvláštní chemickou reakci mezi kolonizátorem a kolonizovaným – a mezi evropskými tužbami a rozlehlostí a osamělostí Afriky. Horečnatá, faulknerovsky hutná próza je silné, přesvědčivé dílo. J. M. Coetzee se v ní hluboce vcítil do své ústřední postavy a s jistotou přetvořil rodinný příběh v zrcadlo koloniální zkušenosti.

      V srdci země
      3,1
    • IJzertijd

      • 191pages
      • 7 heures de lecture

      In een brief aan haar dochter beschrijft een oude, blanke vrouw uit Kaapstad de wreedheden van de Apartheid waarmee ze de laatste maanden van haar leven wordt geconfronteerd.

      IJzertijd
    • Contrapunt

      Roman - druk Heruitgave

      • 205pages
      • 8 heures de lecture
      Contrapunt