0結帳
一位英國女子蘇珊‧巴頓，在航海中遇到船員暴動，她被棄置在一條小船上，漂流到大西洋上的某座小島。一個名叫魯賓遜‧克魯索的人救了她。魯賓遜‧克魯索（也就是知名小說《魯賓遜漂流記》的主人翁）統治這座小島，此外還有一名啞巴僕人——星期五。一年後，蘇珊被解救而返回倫敦。她帶著星期五來到作家丹尼爾‧狄福（《魯賓遜漂流記》作者）面前，希望作家能寫下他們的故事。然而，作家卻發現了另一個全然不同的故事，並想要「在所有實質事物中揭露真相」。這也是在《仇敵》一書中，作者柯慈想要探討的議題。
本書是《魯賓遜漂流記》的變異體，也是一本關於藝術與生活的寓言。風格迥異於柯慈以往的作品。他藉由對《魯賓遜漂流記》的思考，檢視故事本身與其欲傳達的意義之間，所產生的巨大鴻溝；以及說話與沈默、奴役與被奴役、故事與說故事者等等的關係。美國〈出版家週刊〉更認為，《仇敵》隱喻著毒化南非的邪惡社會教條，在主角間的互動關係中呈現出來。
*本書中譯本<<仇敵>>由小知堂出版
Nobel Laureate and two-time Booker prize-winning author of Disgrace and The Life and Times of Michael K, J. M. Coetzee reimagines Daniel DeFoe's classic novel Robinson Crusoe in Foe. Published as a Penguin Essential for the first time.
In an act of breathtaking imagination, J.M Coetzee radically reinvents the story of Robinson Crusoe.
In the early eighteenth century, Susan Barton finds herself adrift from a mutinous ship and cast ashore on a remote desert island. There she finds shelter with its only other inhabitants: a man named Cruso and his tongueless slave, Friday. In time, she builds a life for herself as Cruso's companion and, eventually, his lover. At last they are rescued by a passing ship, but only she and Friday survive the journey back to London.
Determined to have her story told, she pursues the eminent man of letters Daniel Foe in the hope that he will relate truthfully her memories to the world. But with Cruso dead, Friday incapable of speech and Foe himself intent on reshaping her narrative, Barton struggles to maintain her grip on the past, only to fall victim to the seduction of storytelling itself.
Treacherous, elegant and unexpectedly moving, Foe remains one of the most exquisitely composed of this pre-eminent author's works.
