New Coetzee Book Gets Nobel Boost
by Karen Holt -- Publishers Weekly, 10/6/2003
For J.M. Coetzee and his publisher, Viking Penguin, winning the Nobel Prize for literature could not have come at a better time. Viking is scheduled to publish the South African writer's ninth book, Elizabeth Costello, on October 13.
After the prize was announced last week, Viking sent the forthcoming title back for an additional print run—this time with the Nobel sticker on the cover. The publisher also is going back to press with trade paperbacks of the author's backlist.
Penguin president Kathryn Court, who has edited Coetzee since 1982, when he wrote Waiting for the Barbarians, said she expects the Nobel to dramatically increase the author's exposure.
"I feel so strongly that he's such an extraordinary writer that the idea that many more people will come to his readership is very gratifying for me," Court said.
Coetzee, 63, is best known in the U.S. for Disgrace, which won the Booker Prize in 1999, one of two times the author has received the award.
In announcing its Nobel selection, the Swedish Academy said, "It is in exploring weakness and defeat that Coetzee captures the divine spark in man." The Academy also commented that Coetzee's novels are characterized by their "well-crafted composition, pregnant dialogue and analytical brilliance."
Penguin publishes the work of 29 Nobel laureates, including John Steinbeck, Saul Bellow and Nadine Gordimer.
