A rich, funny, and deeply affecting autobiographical new novel from one of the world's greatest living writers. A young English biographer is working on a book about the late writer, John Coetzee. He plans to focus on a period in the seventies when, the biographer senses, Coetzee was 'finding his feet as a writer'. He embarks on a series of interviews with people who were important to Coetzee -- a married woman with whom he had an affair, his favourite cousin Margot, a Brazilian dancer whose daughter had English lessons with him, former friends and colleagues. Thus emerges a portrait of the young Coetzee as an awkward, bookish individual, regarded as an outsider within the family. His insistence on doing manual work, his long hair and beard, and rumours that he writes poetry evoke nothing but suspicion in the South Africa of the time.

An utterly contemporary and deeply thought-provoking novel which addresses the profound unease of countless people in modern democracies around the world. An eminent, seventy-two-year-old Australian writer is invited to contribute to a book entitled Strong Opinions. It is a chance to air some urgent concerns. He writes short essays on the origins of the state, on Machiavelli, on anarchism, on Al-Qaida, on intelligent design, on music. What, he asks, is the origin of the state and the nature of the relationship between citizen and state? How should the citizen of a modern democracy react to the state’s willingness to set aside moral considerations and civil liberties in its war on terror, a war that includes the use of torture? How does the state handle outsiders? In the laundry-room of his apartment block he encounters an alluring young woman. When he discovers she is between jobs he claims failing eyesight and offers her work typing up his manuscript. Anya has no interest in politics but the job provides a distraction, as does the writer’s evident and not unwelcome attraction toward her. Her boyfriend, Alan, an investment consultant who understands the world in harsh neo-liberal economic terms, has reservations about his trophy girlfriend spending time with this 1960s throwback. Taking a lively interest in his affairs, Alan begins to formulate a plan. Diary of a Bad Year is an utterly contemporary work of fiction from one of our greatest writers and deepest thinkers. It addresses the profound unease of countless people in democracies across the world.

The narrator of Youth, a student in the South Africa of the 1950s, has long been plotting an escape from his native country: from the stifling love of his mother, a father whose failures haunt him, and what he is sure is impending revolution. Studying mathematics, reading poetry, and saving money, he tries to ensure that when he arrives in the real world, wherever that may be, he will be prepared to experience life to its full intensity and transform it into art. Arriving at last in London, however, he finds neither poetry nor romance. Instead he succumbs to the monotony of life as a computer programmer, from which random, loveless affairs offer no relief. Devoid of inspiration, he stops writing. An awkward colonial, a constitutional outsider, he begins a dark pilgrimage in which he is continually tested and continually found wanting. Set against the background of the 1960s-Sharpeville, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Vietnam-Youth is a remarkable portrait of a consciousness, isolated and adrift, turning in on itself. J. M. Coetzee explores a young man's struggle to find his way in the world with tenderness and a fierce clarity.

諾貝爾文學獎得主柯慈以第三人稱筆法寫出自己的青春歲月。小說裡的約翰是南非數學研究生，但他最鍾情的是文學，並在少年時就離南非家鄉，遠赴倫敦。在看似清淡的筆下，呈現出少年的多重心理：詩人的敏感、對愛情的懵懂，以及作為殖民地移民的自卑情結。這本虛實交織的私密小說是了解柯慈內心與解讀其作品的重要源頭。兩次獲得布克獎的作家柯慈以第三人稱的方式，描寫少年時期的他如何在透過閱讀自我學習，並獲得夢寐以求到倫敦求學的過程。故事裡的約翰是個南非數學研究生，但他最鍾情的是文學，最後他逃離開普敦，來到他一心嚮往的倫敦，這本自傳體小說大膽揭露這位國際知名作家青春期的懵懂愛欲。全書虛實交構，被視為比柯慈得獎的小說更精采好讀，筆調清冷優雅，其中主角對自己從 南非來到倫敦後，產生自我認同的追尋以及對創作的渴望追求相當令人動容。 作者簡介 柯慈（J. M. Coetzee，1940~） 1940 年 2 月 9 日出生於南非開普敦市。1956 年獲南非開普敦大學文學和數學學位。1960 年代移居英國，曾任電腦程式師，後赴美國攻讀文學。1969 年獲美國德州大學語言學博士。1968到1971 年間在美擔任過英文副教授。1972 年返回南非，擔任開普敦大學講師，1984年獲聘為文學通論教授。1980 年代晚期曾到美國約翰霍普金斯大學擔任教授。柯慈生長於一個英語家庭，兼具德國和英國背景，能說流利的南非荷蘭語。1974 年發表第一本小說《幽暗之地》。之後出版了《在國家心中》（獲得南非最高榮譽CAN獎）。1980 年以《等待野蠻人》獲得 CAN 獎、費伯紀念獎及布萊克紀念獎。1983年以《麥克．K的生命與時代》贏得英國布克獎和法國費米娜獎。1999 年以《屈辱》再度獲得布克獎。 其他著作包括小說《鐵器時代》、《仇敵》、《彼得堡的主人》、《雙面少年》，及尚未有中譯本的新作《Elizabeth Costello》。 柯慈 2002 年遷居澳洲，出版《少年時》一書，現為澳洲愛德萊德大學名譽研究員。

For decades the Magistrate has run the affairs of a tiny frontier settlement, ignoring the impending war between the barbarians and the Empire, whose servant he is. But when the interrogation experts arrive, he is jolted into sympathy with the victims and into a quixotic act of rebellion which lands him in prison, branded as an enemy of the state. Waiting for the Barbarians is an allegory of oppressor and oppressed. Not just a man living through a crisis of conscience in an obscure place in remote times, the Magistrate is an analogue of all men living in complicity with regimes that ignore justice and decency.