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    Here and Now

    Letters (2008–2011)

    Author Paul Auster, J. M. Coetzee
    Read by Paul Auster, J. M. Coetzee
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    On sale Mar 07, 2013 | 7 Hours and 2 Minutes | 9781101607190
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    The high-spirited correspondence between New York Times bestselling author Paul Auster and Nobel laureate J. M. Coetzee

    Although Paul Auster and J. M. Coetzee had been reading each other’s books for years, the two writers did not meet until February 2008. Not long after, Auster received a letter from Coetzee, suggesting they begin exchanging letters on a regular basis and, “God willing, strike sparks off each other.”

    Here and Now is the result of that proposal: the epistolary dialogue between two great writers who became great friends. Over three years their letters touched on nearly every subject, from sports to fatherhood, film festivals to incest, philosophy to politics, from the financial crisis to art, death, family, marriage, friendship, and love.

    Their correspondence offers an intimate and often amusing portrait of these two men as they explore the complexities of the here and now and is a reflection of two sharp intellects whose pleasure in each other’s friendship is apparent on every page.
    © Spencer Ostrander
    Paul Auster was the bestselling author of 4 3 2 1, Sunset Park, The Book of Illusions, Moon Palace, and The New York Trilogy, among many other works. In 2006, he was awarded the Prince of Asturias Prize for Literature. His other honors include the Prix Médicis étranger for Leviathan, the Independent Spirit Award for the screenplay of Smoke, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Burning Boy, and the Carlos Fuentes Prize for his body of work. His novel 4 3 2 1 was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was a Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. His work has been translated into more than forty languages. Paul Auster died in 2024. View titles by Paul Auster
    © Alejandro Guyot
    Born in Cape Town, South Africa, on February 9, 1940, J. M. Coetzee studied first at Cape Town and later at the University of Texas at Austin, where he earned a PhD 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 essay 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. View titles by J. M. Coetzee
    Praise for J. M. Coetzee

    “Many, this reviewer among them, would consider [Coetzee] the greatest living novelist in English.” —The New York Times Book Review

     
    "Coetzee may turn out to be one of the last great novelists, exalted by the intensity of his self-awareness and his willingness to make his home in a spiritual and intellectual impasse of which few of his contemporaries were even aware."--The Nation 

    “South Africa’s most brilliant novelist . . . challenges us to doubt our preconceived notions not only of love but of truth itself.” —The Seattle Times

    "Coetzee's signature brilliance...A mixture of penetrating insight and brittle wit that forces our attention on common terrors we don't want to think about."--The Washington Post



    Praise for Paul Auster

    “A writer of lean, genre-tinged novels whose unaffected prose belies their philosophical complexity….He's also one of our most playful novelists, a lover of narrative labyrinths on par with Borges, to whom he has often been compared.”—The Washington Post

     
    "Paul Auster is one of those sages with confounding talent—confounding for one because he's simply that good... He belongs among Vonnegut, Roth, and DeLillo.”—The Daily Beast

    About

    The high-spirited correspondence between New York Times bestselling author Paul Auster and Nobel laureate J. M. Coetzee

    Although Paul Auster and J. M. Coetzee had been reading each other’s books for years, the two writers did not meet until February 2008. Not long after, Auster received a letter from Coetzee, suggesting they begin exchanging letters on a regular basis and, “God willing, strike sparks off each other.”

    Here and Now is the result of that proposal: the epistolary dialogue between two great writers who became great friends. Over three years their letters touched on nearly every subject, from sports to fatherhood, film festivals to incest, philosophy to politics, from the financial crisis to art, death, family, marriage, friendship, and love.

    Their correspondence offers an intimate and often amusing portrait of these two men as they explore the complexities of the here and now and is a reflection of two sharp intellects whose pleasure in each other’s friendship is apparent on every page.

    Author

    © Spencer Ostrander
    Paul Auster was the bestselling author of 4 3 2 1, Sunset Park, The Book of Illusions, Moon Palace, and The New York Trilogy, among many other works. In 2006, he was awarded the Prince of Asturias Prize for Literature. His other honors include the Prix Médicis étranger for Leviathan, the Independent Spirit Award for the screenplay of Smoke, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Burning Boy, and the Carlos Fuentes Prize for his body of work. His novel 4 3 2 1 was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was a Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. His work has been translated into more than forty languages. Paul Auster died in 2024. View titles by Paul Auster
    © Alejandro Guyot
    Born in Cape Town, South Africa, on February 9, 1940, J. M. Coetzee studied first at Cape Town and later at the University of Texas at Austin, where he earned a PhD 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 essay 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. View titles by J. M. Coetzee

    Praise

    Praise for J. M. Coetzee

    “Many, this reviewer among them, would consider [Coetzee] the greatest living novelist in English.” —The New York Times Book Review

     
    "Coetzee may turn out to be one of the last great novelists, exalted by the intensity of his self-awareness and his willingness to make his home in a spiritual and intellectual impasse of which few of his contemporaries were even aware."--The Nation 

    “South Africa’s most brilliant novelist . . . challenges us to doubt our preconceived notions not only of love but of truth itself.” —The Seattle Times

    "Coetzee's signature brilliance...A mixture of penetrating insight and brittle wit that forces our attention on common terrors we don't want to think about."--The Washington Post



    Praise for Paul Auster

    “A writer of lean, genre-tinged novels whose unaffected prose belies their philosophical complexity….He's also one of our most playful novelists, a lover of narrative labyrinths on par with Borges, to whom he has often been compared.”—The Washington Post

     
    "Paul Auster is one of those sages with confounding talent—confounding for one because he's simply that good... He belongs among Vonnegut, Roth, and DeLillo.”—The Daily Beast

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