El polonès

A provocative twist on a legendary story, in this short new novel by J.M. Coetzee, a man and a woman meet. The setting is the city of Barcelona, what initially unites them is Chopin's music. But that meeting does not happen in the way that neither one nor the other would have wanted it, and yet this somewhat tragic and incomplete story recreates one of the most classic love legends in Western literature. The barriers are not only of the order of feelings. Witold is Polish and Beatriz is Spanish, and at first they only have the English language to make themselves understood. Later, the most elusive form of translation will be the key to a last rapprochement between the two. Differences in taste, cultural differences, differences between the sexes: it is on these tensions that this modern and ironic variation of the story of Dante and Beatrice is narrated. To achieve this, J.M. Coetzee makes a resounding change in perspective, since the successes and failures of this half-hearted love are told from the precise, sincere, and sharp perspective of his female protagonist.