The Pole and Other Stories
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Summary
In this beautifully written and compulsively readable story of love and the mutability of human relationships, pianist Witold's infatuation with Beatriz will change them both.
A Sunday Times, Daily Telegraph and Financial Times Book of the Year
‘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
Reviews
If The Pole and Other Stories were his [Coetzee's] final work, it would be astonishing... Beneath plain-spoken surfaces unexpected depths are often revealed, glinting with flashes of playful seriousness, humour, and grand, existential strangeness
Guardian
