‘Freed from literary convention, Mr Coetzee writes not to provide answers, but to ask great questions.’

‘For all the sharpness and sorrow of Coetzee’s writing, there is something grandly calming abouthis style: his sentences seem to give off light, and not in a hard dazzle, but in the glow of achild’s night-light.’

‘A major force in contemporary writing. A master, in fact.’