John M. Coetzee

In one of his rare public appearances, the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature tells and speaks about the relationship between humans and animals.

J. M. Coetzee has been awarded many international prizes for his novels and his extensive essayistic work, including the Booker Prize twice. In 2003 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. He lives in Adelaide, Australia.

Especially for the festival, Coetzee will present the previously unpublished text The Glass Abattoir, a hybrid of literary narrative, philosophical essay and ethical didactic piece. The point of departure is the question of how a good son should behave when his mother, in a late-life crisis, bombards him with a wealth of material about the relationship between humans and animals - and not only with scientific texts, but also with indictments against controversial practices such as vivisection and industrial livestock farming.