SOURCE: A review of The Master of Petersburg, in New Republic, Vol. 213, No. 16, October 16, 1995, pp. 53-57.

In the following review, Frank contends that The Master of Petersburg is an "enigmatic and rather puzzling book" and that Coetzee is one of the most important contemporary English-language writers.

J. M. Coetzee is a subtle and complex writer whose works invariably contain more than appears on their seemingly pellucid surfaces. He made his reputation with novels that focused on the psychological tension created in the white South African psyche by the social and human anomalies of apartheid. But his special gift is to raise this particular conflict, through a certain starkness of treatment and careful choice of detail, into a parable of the master/slave relationship in all colonial circumstances, in all unjust structures of power. In addition to such works, Coetzee also produced a strange little book called Foe, which...