As Text continues the re-release of J. M. Coetzee's revered works, this second instalment of four titles-with introductions from top emerging and established writers-will win over a new generation of Coetzee readers.

You must listen. I speak with the voice of things to come. I speak in troubled times and tell you how to be as children again.

J. M. Coetzee's debut novel is actually two stunning novellas - Vietnam Project, about a researcher investigating US propaganda and psychological warfare in Vietnam; and The Narrative of Jacobus Coetzee, the story of an eighteenth-century Boer frontiersman and his quest for revenge on a local tribe. Both are concerned with power-who wields it, who is subject to it-and its often catastrophic consequences.