David Attwell

J.M. Coetzee is one of the world's most intriguing authors. Compelling, razor-sharp, erudite: the adjectives pile up but the heart of the fiction remains elusive. Now, in J.M. Coetzee and the Life of Writing, David Attwell explores the extraordinary creative processes behind Coetzee's novels from Dusklands to The Childhood of Jesus. Using Coetzee's manuscripts, notebooks, and research papers—recently deposited at the Harry Ransom Center of the University of Texas at Austin—Attwell produces a fascinating story. He shows convincingly that Coetzee's work is strongly autobiographical, the memoirs being continuous with the fictions, and that his writing proceeds with never-ending self-reflection. Having worked closely with him on Doubling the Point: Essays and Interviews and given early access to Coetzee's archive, David Attwell is an engaging, authoritative source. J. M. Coetzee and the Life of Writing is a fresh, fascinating take on one of the most important and opaque literary figures of our time. This moving account will change the way Coetzee is read, by teachers, critics, and general readers.

Face to face with time

J.M. Coetzee & the Life of Writing

Anna Bernard

Edward Said continues to fascinate and stir controversy, nowhere more than with his classic work Orientalism. Debating Orientalism brings a rare mix of perspectives to an ongoing polemic. Contributors from a range of disciplines take stock of the book's impact and appraise its significance in contemporary cultural politics and philosophy.

Debating Orientalism

Een ontdekkingsreis door wereld en wandel van J.M. Coetzee. Nooit eerder zijn wij dichter bij de schrijver gekomen, en van geen andere wereldauteur krijgen wij zo veel inzicht in de samenhang van werk en leven. David Attwell mocht als eerste het imposante archief van J.M. Coetzee inzien in het Harry Ransom Center in Austin/University of Texas. In de 155 dozen deed Attwell de meest bijzondere ontdekkingen. In Het universum van J.M. Coetzee toont hij ons de verbindingen en verhoudingen tussen het leven en het werk van de Nobelprijswinnaar. Van eerste schetsen tot definitieve romans; nooit eerder zagen we met welke ongelofelijke precisie en zelfkritische houding de auteur te werk gaat, om meer inzicht te krijgen in de essentie van ons bestaan. J.M. Coetzee is een van de meest vereerde, maar ook onkenbare levende auteurs van wereldfaam. Met kennis van het volledige Coetzee-archief zoomt David Attwell in op Coetzees schrijverschap. Attwell had de unieke mogelijkheid om Coetzees dagboeken en manuscripten naast elkaar te bestuderen en zo inzicht te krijgen in verrassende verbindingslijnen tussen leven en werk. Coetzee begint meestal heel dicht bij huis, zeer persoonlijk, en herschrijft dan bijna iedere zin. Hij is nooit bang om verhaallijnen, locaties en personages drastisch te veranderen. Attwell toont ons de ontwikkelingen van Coetzees romans – die soms meer dan vijftien versies tellen – op de meest fascinerende manier. Zo lezen wij bijvoorbeeld dat de oerversie van Wachten op de barbaren zich in Kaapstad afspeelde, waar Robbeneiland ‘geen gevangenis meer voor Nelson Mandela en zijn kameraden was, maar een vertrekpunt van waaraf blanke vluchtelingen de stervende republiek verlieten’, en dat Coetzee strandde met een romanmanuscript over censuur en zelfcensuur, getiteld The Burning of the Books. Verbluft zien wij dat Coetzees romans meestal hun oorsprong vinden in heel concrete situaties, en vooral in de eerste versies vaak autobiografische motieven volgen. Bovendien, argumenteert Attwell, is Zuid-Afrika met zijn geschiedenis, zijn taal, zijn conflicten en landschappen in Coetzees romans veel nadrukkelijker aanwezig dan tot nu toe wordt aangenomen.

oog in oog met de tijd

Het universum van J.M. Coetzee

Derek Attridge

South Africa's unique history has produced literatures in many languages, in both oral and written forms, reflecting the diversity in the cultural histories and experiences of its people. The Cambridge History offers a comprehensive, multi-authored history of South African literature in all eleven official languages (and more minor ones) of the country, produced by a team of over forty international experts, including contributors from all of the major regions and language groups of South Africa. It will provide a complete portrait of South Africa's literary production, organised as a chronological history from the oral traditions existing before colonial settlement, to the post-apartheid revision of the past. In a field marked by controversy, this volume is more fully representative than any existing account of South Africa's literary history. It will make a unique contribution to Commonwealth, international and postcolonial studies and serve as a definitive reference work for decades to come.

The Cambridge History of South African Literature

'Dialogue' and 'fulfilment' in J.M. Coetzee's Age of Iron

Susanna Zinato

Annalisa Pes

Poetics and Politics of Shame in Postcolonial Literature provides a new and wide-ranging appraisal of shame in colonial and postcolonial literature in English. Bringing together young and established voices in postcolonial studies, these essays tackle shame and racism, shame and agency, shame and ethical recognition, the problem of shamelessness, the shame of willed forgetfulness. Linked by a common thread of reflections on shame and literary writing, the essays consider specifically whether the aesthetic and ethical capacities of literature enable a measure of stability or recuperation in the presence of shame’s destructive potential. The obscenity of the in-human, both in the colonial setting and in aftermaths that show little sign of abating, entails the acute significance of shame as a subject for continuing and urgent critical attention.

Poetics and Politics of Shame in Postcolonial Literature

J.M. Coetzee is one of the world's most intriguing authors. Compelling, razor-sharp, erudite: the adjectives pile up but the heart of the fiction remains elusive. Now, David Attwell explores the extraordinary creative processes behind Coetzee's novels from 'Dusklands' to 'The Childhood of Jesus'.

Face to Face with Time

David Attwell defends the literary and political integrity of South African novelist J.M. Coetzee by arguing that Coetzee has absorbed the textual turn of postmodern culture while still addressing the ethical tensions of the South African crisis. As a form of "situational metafiction," Coetzee's writing reconstructs and critiques some of the key discourses in the history of colonialism and apartheid from the eighteenth century to the present. While self-conscious about fiction-making, it takes seriously the condition of the society in which it is produced. Attwell begins by describing the intellectual and political contexts surrounding Coetzee's fiction and then provides a developmental analysis of his six novels, drawing on Coetzee's other writings in stylistics, literary criticism, translation, political journalism and popular culture. Elegantly written, Attwell's analysis deals with both Coetzee's subversion of the dominant culture around him and his ability to see the complexities of giving voice to the anguish of South Africa.

South Africa and the Politics of Writing

J.M. Coetzee

An insightful literary biography of the Nobel Laureate J. M. Coetzee’s, illuminating the creation of his extraordinary novels J. M. Coetzee is one of the most renowned yet elusive authors of our time. Now, in J.M. Coetzee and the Life of Writing, David Attwell explores the extraordinary creative process behind Coetzee's work, from Dusklands to The Childhood of Jesus. Drawing on Coetzee's manuscripts, notebooks and research papers housed at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin, Attwell reveals the fascinating ways in which Coetzee's famous novels developed, sometimes through more than fifteen drafts. He convincingly shows that Coetzee's work is strongly autobiographical, and that his writing proceeds with never-ending self-reflection while it moves toward aesthetic detachment. Above all, Attwell argues, South Africa, with its history, language, landscape and conflicts, is much more present in his novels than we have realized. Having worked closely with Coetzee on Doubling the Point, a collection of essays and interviews, Attwell is an engaging, authoritative source. J.M. Coetzee and The Life of Writing is the first book-length study to make use of Coetzee's extensive archive. A fresh, engaging and moving take on one of the world's foremost literary figures, it is bound to change the way Coetzee is read.

David Attwell

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