‘Confirms Coetzee as one of the great writers of fiction’ Observer

After his piano recital in Barcelona, Witold Walczykiewicz – white-haired virtuoso, controversial interpreter of Chopin – becomes infatuated with Beatriz, his designated companion at dinner. Beatriz, a stylish patron of the arts, is at first unmoved. But as the stranger’s letters, music, and poetry flood into her home, a dream of love begins that surprises them both.

‘One of the world’s most original writers? He is still breaking new ground at the same time as revealing a funny side’ i

‘His prose, apparently simple, is so perfected at every turn that it is moving to read, line after line’ Sunday Times

David is the small boy who is always asking questions. Simón and Inés take care of him in their new town, Estrella. He is learning the language, he has begun to make friends and he has the big dog Bolívar to watch over him.

But he’ll be seven soon and he should be at school. And so, David is enrolled in the Academy of Dance. It’s here, in his new golden dancing slippers, that he learns how to call down the numbers from the sky. Yet it’s here too that he will make troubling discoveries about what adults are capable of.

The Schooldays of Jesus is a mesmerising tale about growing up, and about the choices we are forced to make in our lives.

‘Compelling, often very funny, full of sudden depths’ Observer

Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2016

Simón and David – a tall ten-year-old – are in a new land, together with a woman named Inés. The small family have found a home in which David can thrive.

But David is spotted by Julio Fabricante, the director of a local orphanage, playing football with his friends. He shows unusual talent. When David announces that he wants to live with Julio and the children in his care, Simón and Inés are stunned. David is leaving them, and they can only love him and bear witness.

The Death of Jesus is the completion of an incomparable trilogy in which J. M. Coetzee explores the meaning of a world empty of memory but brimming with questions.

* A New York Times Notable Book *
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‘Extraordinary… Coetzee stands as the pre-eminent novelist in the English-writing world’ New Statesman

‘You will read its cool, dry final sentences – as I did – with tears in your eyes’ The Times

After crossing oceans, a man and a boy – both strangers to each other – arrive in a new land. David, the boy, has lost his mother and Simón vows to look after him. In this strange country they are each assigned a new name, a new birthday, a new life.

Knowing nothing of their surroundings, nor the language or customs, they are determined to find David’s mother. Though the boy has no memory of her, Simón is certain he will recognise her at first sight. ‘But after we find her,’ David asks, ‘what are we here for?’

The Childhood of Jesus is a profound, beautiful and continually surprising novel from a very great writer.

‘Powerful and poetic… This book will continue to act, silently and unexpectedly, on the reader’s imagination’ Financial Times

After years teaching Romantic poetry at the Technical University of Cape Town, David Lurie, middle-aged and twice divorced, has an impulsive affair with a student.

The affair sours; he is denounced and summoned before a committee of inquiry. Willing to admit his guilt, but refusing to yield to pressure to repent publicly, he resigns and retreats to his daughter Lucy’s isolated smallholding.

For a time, his daughter’s influence and the natural rhythms of the farm promise to harmonise his discordant life. But the balance of power in the country is shifting. He and Lucy become victims of a savage and disturbing attack which brings into relief all the faultlines in their relationship.

**A BBC BETWEEN THE COVERS BIG JUBILEE READ PICK**
**One of the BBC’s 100 Novels That Shaped Our World**