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The Death of Jesus  By  cover art

The Death of Jesus

By: J. M. Coetzee
Narrated by: Cameron Stewart
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Publisher's summary

After The Childhood of Jesus and The Schooldays of Jesus, the Nobel prize-winning author completes his haunting trilogy with a new masterwork, The Death of Jesus

In Estrella, David has grown to be a tall 10-year-old who is a natural at soccer, and loves kicking a ball around with his friends. His father Simón and Bolívar the dog usually watch while his mother Inés now works in a fashion boutique. David still asks many questions, challenging his parents, and any authority figure in his life. In dancing class at the Academy of Music he dances as he chooses. He refuses to do sums and will not read any books except Don Quixote.

One day Julio Fabricante, the director of a nearby orphanage, invites David and his friends to form a proper soccer team. David decides he will leave Simón and Inés to live with Julio, but before long he succumbs to a mysterious illness. In The Death of Jesus, J. M. Coetzee continues to explore the meaning of a world empty of memory but brimming with questions.

©2020 J. M. Coetzee (P)2020 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"[A] thoughtful, clear-eyed final installment.... Like in previous volumes, Coetzee's simple, clean prose is guided by philosophical questions, and Simon’s humanistic reflections provide a thrilling contrast to David's bumpy journey of faith and acceptance of his mortality. This is an ambitious and satisfying conclusion." (Publishers Weekly)

"Anything J.M. Coetzee writes deserves our full attention.... The Death of Jesus is full of truth, irreducible, tearfully moving to read." (Evening Standard, UK)

"Concludes the trilogy with force and heart...if The Death of Jesus strikes you in the right place, then you will read its cool, dry final sentences - as I did - with tears in your eyes." (The Times, UK)

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

The story is lost in the narration.

The book tells the heartwrenching story of the death of a child, but the emotions are filtered away by the narrator, who reads the story as if it were the headline news. I might have felt the story closer to the heart if it had been read with warmth and compassion.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Well-written simple story of an uninteresting Family Life

Possibly an example of the Author’s belief that Life had no meaning and bore little interest to the Common Man. It came close to convincing me because upon finishing I wondered why I had wasted time listening to it.

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