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Foe

Published
Mar 1987
Main Genre
Literary Literary
Rating
Pages
160

About This Book

With the same electrical intensity of language and insight that he brought to Waiting for the Barbarians, J.M. Coetzee reinvents the story of Robinson Crusoe—and in so doing, directs our attention to the seduction and tyranny of storytelling itself.

J.M. Coetzee's latest novel, The Schooldays of Jesus, is now available from Viking. Late Essays: 2006-2016 will be available January 2018.

In 1720 the eminent man of letters Daniel Foe is approached by Susan Barton, lately a castaway on a desert island. She wants him to tell her story, and that of the enigmatic man who has become her rescuer, companion, master and sometimes lover: Cruso. Cruso is dead, and his manservant, Friday, is incapable of speech. As she tries to relate the truth about him, the ambitious Barton cannot help turning Cruso into her invention. For as narrated by Foe—as by Coetzee himself—the stories we thought we knew acquire depths that are at once treacherous, elegant, and unexpectedly moving.

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Jan 1988 Viking ISBN 0140110321
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Jan 1988 Penguin ISBN 0147782368
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Feb 1988 Penguin ISBN 014009623X
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Dec 2004 Penguin (UK) ISBN 014029953X
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Jan 2010 Penguin (UK) ISBN 0241950112
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Oct 2015 Penguin (UK) ISBN 0241973694
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First Edition Mar 1987 Viking ISBN 0670813982
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eBook

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Jun 2015 Penguin UK ISBN 0241975441
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Feb 2017 Penguin Books ISBN B01M6BHRWN
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Feb 2017 Penguin ISBN 1524705497
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Feb 2017 Text Publishing ISBN 1925774872
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Large Print

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Dec 1986 John Curley & Assoc ISBN 155504459X
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Oct 1987 John Curley & Assoc ISBN 1555042996
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