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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 | 9781101928127
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“[A] civilized discourse between two cultivated and sophisticated men. . . . It’s a pleasure to be in their company.” —Michael Dirda, The Washington Post

After a meeting at an Australian literary festival brought them together in 2008, novelists Paul Auster and J. M. Coetzee began exchanging letters on a regular basis with the hope they might “strike sparks off each other." Here and Now is the result: a three-year epistolary dialogue that touches on nearly every subject, from sports to fatherhood, literature to film, philosophy to politics, from the financial crisis to art, death, eroticism, marriage, friendship, and love. Their high-spirited and luminous correspondence offers an intimate and often amusing portrait of these two men as they explore the complexities of the here and now and reveal their pleasure in each other’s friendship on every page.
“[A] civilized discourse between two cultivated and sophisticated men . . . A pleasure to be in their company.”—Michael Dirda, The Washington Post
“These two famous writers might seem at first an unlikely pairing . . . [but] as a series of collaborative inquiries and an extended meditation on the processes of friendship, the book has something substantive to offer.”—The New York Times Book Review
”Here and Now is akin to eavesdropping on a dazzling, extended dinner conversation between two intelligent and substantive minds. . . . A very appealing, human portrait of these two writers.”—Bookpage “A genial, often riveting exchange. Amiable and revealing missives from two remarkable minds.”—Kirkus Reviews

“A striking portrait of two great friends . . . the result of Auster and Coetzee’s exchange is nothing short of witty, sharp and thought-provoking, and offers a fascinating look into the minds of two of the twentieth century’s greatest writers.”—Malibu Magazine
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
© 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

About

“[A] civilized discourse between two cultivated and sophisticated men. . . . It’s a pleasure to be in their company.” —Michael Dirda, The Washington Post

After a meeting at an Australian literary festival brought them together in 2008, novelists Paul Auster and J. M. Coetzee began exchanging letters on a regular basis with the hope they might “strike sparks off each other." Here and Now is the result: a three-year epistolary dialogue that touches on nearly every subject, from sports to fatherhood, literature to film, philosophy to politics, from the financial crisis to art, death, eroticism, marriage, friendship, and love. Their high-spirited and luminous correspondence offers an intimate and often amusing portrait of these two men as they explore the complexities of the here and now and reveal their pleasure in each other’s friendship on every page.

Reviews

“[A] civilized discourse between two cultivated and sophisticated men . . . A pleasure to be in their company.”—Michael Dirda, The Washington Post
“These two famous writers might seem at first an unlikely pairing . . . [but] as a series of collaborative inquiries and an extended meditation on the processes of friendship, the book has something substantive to offer.”—The New York Times Book Review
”Here and Now is akin to eavesdropping on a dazzling, extended dinner conversation between two intelligent and substantive minds. . . . A very appealing, human portrait of these two writers.”—Bookpage “A genial, often riveting exchange. Amiable and revealing missives from two remarkable minds.”—Kirkus Reviews

“A striking portrait of two great friends . . . the result of Auster and Coetzee’s exchange is nothing short of witty, sharp and thought-provoking, and offers a fascinating look into the minds of two of the twentieth century’s greatest writers.”—Malibu Magazine
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

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

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