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Published 22 October 2014
ISBN 9781922182562
Format Hardback
Extent 80pp
AU Price $19.99
NZ Price $26.00

Three Stories



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As he gets older he finds himself growing more and more crabby about language, about slack usage, falling standards. Falling in love, for instance. 'We fell in love with the house', friends of his say. How can you fall in love with a house when the house cannot love you back, he wants to reply? Once you start falling in love with objects, what will be left of real love, love as it used to be? But no one seems to care. People fall in love with tapestries, with old cars.
A man contemplates his deep connection to a house.
The unfathomable idea of threshing wheat points to a life lost.
And a writer ponders the creation of his narrator.
Three Stories—'His Man and He', written as Coetzee's acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize for Literature, 'A House in Spain' and 'Nietverloren'—is the work of a master at his peak. These are stories that embody the essence of our existence.

Published 22 October 2014
ISBN 9781922182562
Format Hardback
Extent 80pp
AU Price $19.99
NZ Price $26.00

About the author

J. M. Coetzee

J. M. Coetzee was the first author to win the Booker Prize twice and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003. His work includes Waiting for the Barbarians, Life and Times of Michael K, The Master of Petersburg, Disgrace and Diary of a Bad Year. He lives in Adelaide.

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Praise for Three Stories

'Coetzee is a master we scarcely deserve.' Age

PRH, PRH

'From the opening chapter I had that hard-to-pin-down sense that I was in the presence of a masterpiece.' Australian on The Childhood of Jesus

PRH, PRH

'A theological and philosophical fable of considerable brilliance, power and wit. Coetzee hasn't done anything as fine and beautifully executed as this since Disgrace.' Canberra Times / Age on The Childhood of Jesus

PRH, PRH

'A Kafka-inspired parable of the quest for meaning itself.' New York Times Book Review on The Childhood of Jesus

PRH, PRH

'Coetzee's fable has a dream-like, Kafkaesque quality. Are we in some kind of heaven, purgatory or simply another staging post of existence? Clear answers are elusive, but this is a riveting, thought-provoking read and surely Coetzee's best novel since Disgrace more than a decade ago.' Daily Mail on The Childhood of Jesus

PRH, PRH

'Beautiful but enigmatic fable, written in clean, fierce, present tense prose, seems set in some sort of afterlife...insistently memorable in its spare evocations, it leaves the reader charmed, intrigued, impressed and curious, with much compulsively to ponder.' Adelaide Advertiser on The Childhood of Jesus

PRH, PRH

'[A] quiet, haunting novel...Coetzee's calm, emblematic prose lifts the plot into something redolent with metaphor and mystery...Any statement can become a symbol; every event is suffused with potential revelation; something magical is always present and just out of reach...It's a memorable accomplishment, turning the everyday into the almost everlasting.' Weekend Herald (NZ) on The Childhood of Jesus

PRH, PRH

'Written with all of Coetzee's penetrating rigour, it will be an early contender for an unprecedented third Booker prize.' Observer on The Childhood of Jesus

PRH, PRH

'The Childhood of Jesus represents a return to the allegorical mode that made him famous...a Kafkaesque version of the nativity story...The Childhood of Jesus does ample justice to his giant reputation: it's richly enigmatic, with regular flashes of Coetzee's piercing intelligence.' Guardian

PRH, PRH

'A breathtaking performance, full of the tears in things and the wonders of which we cannot speak.' Peter Craven, Sydney Review of Books on The Childhood of Jesus

PRH, PRH