Essays on literary subjects from Nobel and Booker Prize-winning writer J.M. Coetzee. This is a wise and insightful guide to works of international literature that span three centuries, from Daniel Defoe to Philip Roth. Coetzee has had a long-standing interest in German literature and here he engages with the work of Goethe, Hölderlin, Kleist and Walser. A fascinating collection.