An ingenious new work of fiction from the Nobel Prize— winning author of Disgrace J . M. Coetzee once again breaks literary ground with Diary of a Bad Year , a book that is, in the words of its protagonist, “a response to the present in which I find myself.” Aging author Senor C has been commissioned to write a series of essays entitled “Strong Opinions,” of which he has many. After hiring a beautiful young typist named Anya, the two embark on a relationship that will have a profound impact on them both— especially when Alan, Anya's no-good boyfriend, develops designs on Senor C's bank account. Told in these three voices simultaneously, Coetzee has created any entirely new way of telling a story, and nothing less than an “involving, argumentative, moving novel” ( The New Yorker ). Editorial Reviews J. M. Coetzee's novel Diary of a Bad Year is something of a self-managed funeral, but a lavish one: mordant, funny and wise. Mr. Coetzee writes circles around any attempt to pin him down…Mr. Coetzee moves through the country of old age as if it were a fresh journey, this one traveling second class. As C. explores the place, he shifts from arrogance to anger to humility and finally to something like mystical acceptance. All this indicates what Diary does, and quite misses what it is: Mr.Coetzee somewhere close to his most serious, and having—and giving—lovely fun. I think of the childlike simplicity of late Beethoven on a profound return trip from profundity. About The Author: John Maxwell Coetzee was born in 1940 in Cape Town, South Africa. He is of both Boer and English descent. His parents sent him to an English school, and he grew up using English as his first language. At the beginning of the 1960s he moved to England, where he worked initially as a computer programmer. He studied literature in the United States and has gone on to teach at several American universities, the University of Cape Town.
