After years teaching Romantic poetry at the Technical University of Cape Town, David Lurie, middle-aged and twice divorced, has an impulsive affair with a student. The affair sours; he is denounced and summoned before a committee of inquiry. Willing to admit his guilt, but refusing to yield to pressure to repent publicly, he resigns and retreats to his daughter Lucy's isolated smallholding.

For a time, his daughter's influence and the natural rhythms of the farm promise to harmonise his disco...

A pianist falls grandly, helplessly in love in this elegant new novella from the twice-Booker Prize winner

The Pole tells the story of Witold Walczykiewicz, a vigorous, white-haired pianist, who becomes infatuated with Beatriz, a stylish patron of the arts, after she helps organize his Barcelona concert.

Although Beatriz, who is married, is initially unimpressed by Wittold, she soon finds herself pursued and ineluctably swept into his world. As he sends her letters, extends countless invitati...