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Foe
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Foe Paperback - 1988

by J. M. Coetzee

In this brilliant reshaping of Defoe's classic tale starring Robinson Crusoe, Coetzee explores the relationships between speech and silence, master and slave, story and storyteller, and sanity and madness.


Summary

With the same electrical intensity of language and insight that he brought to Waiting for the Barbarians and The Master of Petersburg, J.M. Coetzee reinvents the story of Robinson Crusoe—and in so doing, directs our attention to the seduction and tyranny of storytelling itself

In 1720 the eminent man of letters Daniel Foe is approached by Susan Barton, lately a castaway on a desert island. She wants him to tell her story, and that of the enigmatic man who has become her rescuer, companion, master and sometimes lover: Cruso. Cruso is dead, and his manservant, Friday, is incapable of speech. As she tries to relate the truth about him, the ambitious Barton cannot help turning Cruso into her invention. For as narrated by Foe—as by Coetzee himself—the stories we thought we knew acquire depths that are at once treacherous, elegant, and unexpectedly moving.

From the publisher

With the same electrical intensity of language and insight that he brought to Waiting for the Barbarians, J.M. Coetzee reinvents the story of Robinson Crusoe--and in so doing, directs our attention to the seduction and tyranny of storytelling itself.

J.M. Coetzee's latest novel, The Schooldays of Jesus, is now available from Viking. Late Essays: 2006-2016 will be available January 2018. In 1720 the eminent man of letters Daniel Foe is approached by Susan Barton, lately a castaway on a desert island. She wants him to tell her story, and that of the enigmatic man who has become her rescuer, companion, master and sometimes lover: Cruso. Cruso is dead, and his manservant, Friday, is incapable of speech. As she tries to relate the truth about him, the ambitious Barton cannot help turning Cruso into her invention. For as narrated by Foe--as by Coetzee himself--the stories we thought we knew acquire depths that are at once treacherous, elegant, and unexpectedly moving.

Details

  • Title Foe
  • Author J. M. Coetzee
  • Binding Paperback
  • Edition [ Edition: Repri
  • Pages 160
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Penguin Books, New York
  • Date January 5, 1988
  • ISBN 9780140096231 / 014009623X
  • Weight 0.32 lbs (0.15 kg)
  • Dimensions 7.79 x 5.13 x 0.49 in (19.79 x 13.03 x 1.24 cm)
  • Ages 18 to UP years
  • Grade levels 13 - UP
  • Library of Congress subjects Survival after airplane accidents,, Islands
  • Library of Congress Catalog Number 87011913
  • Dewey Decimal Code FIC

Media reviews

"A small miracle of a book...of marvelous intricacy and overwhelming power." —The Washington Post Book World



"Foe is a finely honed testament to its author's intelligence, imagination, and skill.... The writing is lucid and precise, the landscape depicted mythic yet specific." —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times



 

Citations

  • Publishers Weekly, 11/20/1987, Page 0

About the author

Born in Cape Town, South Africa, on February 9, 1940, John Michael Coetzee studied first at Cape Town and later at the University of Texas at Austin, where he earned a Ph.D. degree in literature. In 1972 he returned to South Africa and joined the faculty of the University of Cape Town. His works of fiction include Dusklands, Waiting for the Barbarians, which won South Africa's highest literary honor, the Central News Agency Literary Award, and the Life and Times of Michael K., for which Coetzee was awarded his first Booker Prize in 1983. He has also published a memoir, Boyhood: Scenes From a Provincial Life, and several essays collections. He has won many other literary prizes including the Lannan Award for Fiction, the Jerusalem Prize and The Irish Times International Fiction Prize. In 1999 he again won Britain's prestigious Booker Prize for Disgrace, becoming the first author to win the award twice in its 31-year history. In 2003, Coetzee was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
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Foe: A Novel (King Penguin)
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Foe: A Novel (King Penguin)

by J. M. Coetzee

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Foe

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Foe : A Novel

Foe : A Novel

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Foe

Foe

by Coetzee, J. M.

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ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
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Foe

Foe

by Coetzee, J. M.

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ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
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Foe
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Foe

by Coetzee, J. M.

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Foe : A Novel
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Foe : A Novel

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Foe : A Novel
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Foe : A Novel

by Coetzee, J. M

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ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
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Foe : A Novel
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Foe : A Novel

by Coetzee, J. M

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ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9780140096231 / 014009623x
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Foe : A Novel
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Foe : A Novel

by Coetzee, J. M

  • Used
Condition
Used - Very Good
ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9780140096231 / 014009623x
Quantity Available
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