This is Coetzee's novel after the much awarded Disgrace and the Nobel Prize for Literature. Elizabeth Costello is an aging novelist, made famous for her work about Marion Bloom, the wife of Leopold Bloom, the protagonist in Joyce's Ulysses. Elizabeth has long stopped writing; she, instead, is now spending time just giving talks about other people's works. Through a series of speeches delivered at different occassions, Mrs. Costello essayed the woman she has come to be: strong-willed and formidable.
Years after winning the Nobel Prize for Literature, Coetzee never rests his laurels and continues to push the limits of the narrative form.