For South African writer J.M. Coetzee, winner of two Booker Prizes and the 2003 Nobel Prize for Literature, the world of receiving literary awards and giving speeches must be such a commonplace that he has put the circuit at the center of his book, Elizabeth Costello. As the work opens, in fact, the eponymous Elizabeth, a fictional novelist, is in Williamstown, Pennsylvania, to receive the Stowe Award. For her speech at the Williamstown's Altona College she chooses the tired topic, "What Is Realism?" and quickly loses her audience in her unfocused discussion of Kafka. From there, readers follow her to a cruise ship where she is virtually imprisoned as a celebrity lecturer to the ship's guests.

Lesson 1  Realism

Lesson 2  The Novel in Africa

Lesson 3  The Lives of Animals:

 ONE:  The Philosophers and the Animals

Lesson 4  The Lives of Animals:

 TWO:  The Poets and the Animals

Lesson 5  The Humanities in Africa

Lesson 6  The Problem of Evil

Lesson 7  Eros

Lesson 8  At the Gate

Postscript: Letter of Elizabeth, Lady Chandos