Late Essays: 2006–2017

With this third collection of essays, Nobel Laureate and Man Booker Prize winner Coetzee (Life and Times of Michael K., Disgrace, etc.) brings a novelist's sensibility to the art of literary criticism. The wide range of novels discussed form a chronological look at the genre's development, from Coetzee's perspective. He includes such classics as Daniel Defoe's Roxana, Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary, Leo Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich, along with more contemporary works by Philip Roth, Ford Maddox Ford, Irène Némirovsky, and others. In examining the novels of Nobel Prize winner Patrick White, Coetzee praises the decision of White's literary agent to publish The Hanging Garden posthumously, despite the author's instructions to burn any fragments found after his death. Most noteworthy is Coetzee's thought-provoking analysis of Samuel Beckett's writing, especially the novels Watt and Molloy. Presenting possible interpretations of these challenging works encourages readers who otherwise might never consider them.