Stranger Shores: Literary Essays: 1986-1999 [Anglais] [Broché]

Tackling works by Rushdie, Naguib Mahfouz, Doris Lessing, Borges and A.S. Byatt, Stranger Shores: Literary Essays collects critical work by South African author and two-time Booker-winner J.M. Coetzee. Coetzee posits in "What Is a Classic" that "[c]riticism... is duty-bound to interrogate the classic" and thereby "may be what the classic uses to define itself and ensure its survival." None of these thoughtful, deft and erudite essays, all but one of which were previously published, land heavily or obviously (if at all) on any side of a literary, critical or political issue like Coetzee's poised fiction.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Coetzee (Waiting for the Barbarians) is one of South Africa's major novelists. In this collection of 26 essays, many of them first published in the New York Review of Books, he gives careful, fair-minded, and nuanced readings of many different authors. Coetzee is especially concerned and attentive to questions of translation and the craft of the novelist. Dutch authors (Marcellus Emants and Harry Mulisch) are insightfully covered, as are African authors (Nadine Gordimer and Breyten Breytenbach). The essays on European writers Rainer Maria Rilke, Franz Kafka, and Robert Musil and on Middle Eastern authors Aharon Appelfeld, Amos Oz, and Naguib Mahfouz reveal Coetzee's great insights in history, politics, and the relationships of literature to culture and society. Finally, a review of Noel Mostert's epic Frontiers powerfully depicts the harsh history of South Africa. Coetzee honestly states his agreements and differences with the authors he reviews. Recommended for literature collections.
- Gene Shaw, NYPL
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

Internationally acclaimed novelist Coetzee is also a rigorous essayist, as evident in his collection on censorship, Giving Offense (1996), and in his serious literary criticism. This gathering of 26 essays displays the range and interpretative richness of his profound involvement in other writers' work, beginning with an intriguing inquiry into how Daniel Defoe was eclipsed by his own creation, the now mythic Robinson Crusoe, and Coetzee's vision for a screen adaptation of Samuel Richardson's Clarissa. Writing from a consistently elevated political perspective as well as academically calibrated aesthetics, Coetzee also digs into Joseph Frank's monumental five-volume biography of Dostoevsky, discusses the work of Czech writer Josef Skvorecky, and roughs up A. S. Byatt. Caribbean novelist Caryl Phillips comes in for searing criticism even as Coetzee praises him for "remembering what the West would like to forget." And Aharon Appelfeld, Naguib Mahfouz, and a constellation of South African writers, including Gordimer and Lessing, Daphne Rooke and Breyten Breytenbach, are all treated with equal measures of skepticism and respect to illuminating ends. Donna Seaman
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Erudite, insightful, impressive in scope and subject matter.

??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

?This is exemplary writing -- balanced, clear, direct and profound.? -- Literary Review

?Coetzee is one of the greatest writers of our time.? -- Los Angeles Times --Ce texte fait référence à lédition Broché .

Two-time Booker Prize-winner J. M. Coetzee is one of the world's greatest novelists. This thought-provoking collection gathers twenty-six of his essays on books and writing. In his opening piece, "What Is a Classic?", Coetzee asks, "What does it mean in living terms to say that the classic is what survives?" He explores the answer by way of T. S. Eliot, Johann Sebastian Bach, and Zbigniew Herbert. Coetzee goes on to discuss eighteenth- and nineteenth-century authors such as Defoe and Turgenev, the German modernists such as Rilke, Kafka, and Musil, and the giants of late-twentieth-century literature, among them Brodsky, Gordimer, Rushdie, and Lessing.

A superb collection of essays by an author who has won the Booker Prize twice. --Ce texte fait référence à lédition Broché .

“Coetzee is one of the greatest writers of our time.” –Los Angeles Times

“One of the the best novelists alive.” –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.” –Nadine Gordimer --Ce texte fait référence à l'édition Relié .

J. M. Coetzee's books include Waiting for the Barbarians, Life & Times of Michael K, Foe, Boyhood, Disgrace, and Youth. A professor of social thought at the University of Chicago, he has received many awards for his fiction.