Product Description An extraordinary anthology of literary essays by the Booker Prize-winning author of In the Heart of the Country presents twenty-six pieces on books and writing, including "What is a Classic?" and studies of Daniel Defoe, Ivan Turgenev, Kafka, Joseph Brodsky, Salman Rushdie, Nadine Gordimer, and other notable authors. 15,000 first printing. From Publishers Weekly 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. From Library Journal 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. From Booklist 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 Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Review Deeply intelligent, provocative, and enjoyable literary investigations. -- Kirkus, June 15, 2001 About the Author Born in Cape Town, South Africa, on February 9, 1940, John Michael Coetzee studied first at Cape Town and later at the University of Texas at Austin, where he earned a Ph.D. degree in literature. In 1972 he returned to South Africa and joined the faculty of the University of Cape Town. His works of fiction include Dusklands, Waiting for the Barbarians, which won South Africa���s highest literary honor, the Central News Agency Literary Award, and the Life and