The Lives of Animals
- Jan 20
- 1 min read
Updated: Feb 20
By J.M. Coetzee • 1999
The Lives of Animals is a metafictional novella about animal rights by the South African novelist J. M. Coetzee, recipient of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature. The work is introduced by Amy Gutmann and followed by a collection of responses by Marjorie Garber, Peter Singer, Wendy Doniger and Barbara Smuts.
Why it matters
Coetzee doesn't tell you what to think. He shows you a woman who has thought deeply about animal suffering and can no longer unsee it, and how that knowledge isolates her from everyone around her. The book is assigned in philosophy courses not because it makes arguments (though it does) but because it dramatises what it feels like to hold a position most people find extreme. It's a book about moral loneliness.
Worth knowing
The book originated as the Tanner Lectures at Princeton in 1997. Coetzee was invited to deliver a philosophy lecture and instead performed fiction. The audience didn't know whether to respond to the arguments or the narrative... The confusion was kind of the point.
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