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.
Discover the Australian novelist ranked by Ladbrokes as a top-five contender for the 2010 Nobel Prize. Barley Patch takes as its subject the reasons an author might abandon fiction—or so he thinks—forever. Using the form of an oblique self-interrogation, it begins with the Beckettian question “Must I write?” and proceeds to expand from this small, personal query to fill in the details of a landscape entirely unique in world letters, a chronicle of the images from life and fiction that have endured and mingled in the author’s mind, as well as the details (and details within details) that they contain. As interested, if not more so, in the characters from his books—finished or unfinished—as with the members of his family or his daily life, the narrator lays bare the act of writing and imagining, finally giving us a glimpse of the mythical place where the characters of fiction dwell before they come into existence in books. In the spirit of Italo Calvino and Georges Perec, Barley Patch is like no other fiction being written today.
David Winters has quickly become a leading voice in the new landscape of online literary criticism. His widely-published work maps the furthest frontiers of contemporary fiction and theory. The essays in this book range from the American satirist Sam Lipsyte to the reclusive Australian genius Gerald Murnane; from the "distant reading" of Franco Moretti to the legacy of Gordon Lish. Meditations on style, form and fictional worlds sit side-by-side with overviews of the cult status of Oulipo, the aftermath of modernism, and the history of continental philosophy. Infinite Fictions is indispensable reading for anyone interested in the forefront of literary thought.
Gerald Murnane: Another World in This One coincides with a renewed interest in his work. It includes an important new essay by Murnane himself, alongside chapters by established and emerging literary critics from Australia and internationally. Together they provide a stimulating reassessment of Murnane’s diverse body of work.
“How Heavy Is The Mountain,” begins in 1986, as a young college graduate, Kris Westerberg, arrives in Ketchikan, Alaska for the first time. As a fresh recruit to an Alaskan touring company, he faces a summer of unknown adventure and, along with two of his companions from the “Outside,” gets to know southeast Alaska through his tour-guiding, excursions to sites of “local color” and the occasional fishing mishap. Kris returns for another summer of touring in 1987, this time to Skagway, Alaska, launching site of the Klondike Gold Rush. Here, Kris and his friends take up residence in a retired Gold Rush-era brothel and begin to dig deeply into the local experience, not only through touring but also via Slow-Bicycle Racing, sauna expeditions in the Dyea bush, Hot Red Onions and a backcountry trek over the historic Chilkoot Trail. In the summer of 1988, Kris is assigned as a guide out of Fairbanks, Alaska. He is quickly accepted into the fraternity of long-haul tour drivers as he begins to make the circuit among Fairbanks, Dawson City, Denali National Park and many other locales. Then, in the tiny hamlet of Tok, Alaska, he meets a very unlikely person: Genna, the woman of his dreams. Their ensuing romance takes them from midnight gardening to a Summer Solstice party, through a devastating forest fire and, ultimately, to a promise to spend an Alaskan winter together, in a remote cabin near Skagway. The winter of 1988-1989 tests Kris’ mettle in a wholly new way, as he and Genna explore the vagaries of living “among the elements” together. They manage to survive, and even thrive, despite indiscriminate icestorms, unheated Volkswagens and frosty outdoor privies— with their relationship, and their sanity, more or less intact. And, as the springtime finally dawns, Kris begins to realize that, rather than being “just” a tour guide, he is becoming a true Alaskan, in every sense. “How Heavy Is The Mountain” is a palette of tones, styles and themes. At once it is erudite and offbeat, informative and entertaining. Within its pages a reader encounters narrative travel writing, miniature wildlife treatises, poetry, pointless drinking songs and highly personalized storytelling. Overall, the story is told with warmth, humor and an affection for its subjects: in particular, the great land that is Alaska.
