The Pole

The novel centres around a Polish pianist, Witold, in Catalonia who falls in love with a woman named Beatriz.[1][2]

The novel was first published in a Spanish translation by Mariana Dimópoulos under the title El Polaco by the Argentinian publisher El Hilo de Ariadna.[3][1] This was Coetzee's third book whose initial publication was in the Southern Hemisphere. Coetzee explains that this is deliberate on his part because "the symbolism of publishing in the South before the North is important to me".[3]

The Pole was also his second book to originally appear in Spanish translation. Coetzee says the Spanish translation of the novel provides a more accurate portrayal of his objectives than the English.[2] An English edition was published in July, 2023.[4][5]