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.

J. M. Coetzee and the Life of Writing: Face-to-face with Time

Attwell, David

Reference

Penguin??Books

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.

J.M. Coetzee: South Africa and the Politics of Writing (Perspectives on Southern Africa)

Literature & Fiction

History & Criticism

University of California Press

J.M. Coetzee: South Africa and the Politics of Writing (Perspectives on Southern Africa) (Volume 48)

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

VIKING

Rewriting Modernity: Studies in Black South African Literary History

Rewriting Modernity: Studies in Black South African Literary History connects the black literary archive in South Africa—from the nineteenth-century writing of Tiyo Soga to Zakes Mda in the twenty-first century—to international postcolonial studies via the theoryof transculturation, a position adapted from the Cuban anthropologist Fernando Ortiz. David Attwell provides a welcome complication of the linear black literary history—literature as a reflection of the process of political emancipation—that is so often presented. He focuses on cultural transactions in a series of key moments and argues that black writers in South Africa have used print culture to map themselves onto modernity as contemporary subjects, to negotiate, counteract, reinvent, and recast their positioning within colonialism, apartheid, and the context of democracy.

Ohio University Press

A 2007 CHOICE Outstanding Academic TitleRewriting Modernity: Studies in Black South African Literary History connects the black literary archive in South Africa—from the nineteenth-century writing of Tiyo Soga to Zakes Mda in the twenty-first century—to international postcolonial studies via the theory of transculturation, a position adapted from the Cuban anthropologist Fernando Ortiz.David Attwell provides a welcome complication of the linear black literary history—literature as a reflection of the process of political emancipation—that is so often presented. He focuses on cultural transactions in a series of key moments and argues that black writers in South Africa have used print culture to map themselves onto modernity as contemporary subjects, to negotiate, counteract, reinvent, and recast their positioning within colonialism, apartheid, and the context of democracy.

Rewriting Modernity connects the black literary archive in South Africa-from the nineteenth-century writing of Tiyo Soga to Zakes Mda in the twenty-first century-to international postcolonial studies via the theory of transculturation, a position adapted from the Cuban anthropologist Fernando Ortiz. Attwell provides a welcome complication of the linear black literary history-literature as a reflection of the process of political emancipation-that is so often presented.  He focuses on cultural transactions in a series of key moments and argues that black writers in South Africa have used print culture to map themselves onto modernity as contemporary subjects, to negotiate, counteract, reinvent and recast their positioning within colonialism, apartheid and in the context of democracy.

University Of KwaZulu-Natal Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Attwell, David. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Attwell, David

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Attwell, David. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

J. M. Coetzee and the Life of Writing: Face-to-face with Time

J.M. Coetzee: South Africa and the Politics of Writing (Perspectives on Southern Africa)

J.M. Coetzee: South Africa and the Politics of Writing (Perspectives on Southern Africa) (Volume 48)

J. M. Coetzee and the Life of Writing: Face-to-face with Time

Rewriting Modernity: Studies in Black South African Literary History

Rewriting Modernity: Studies in Black South African Literary History

Rewriting Modernity: Studies in Black South African Literary History