Title: Speech and Silence in the Fictions of J. M. Coetzee
Abstract: David Attwell maintains that Coetzee's novels are 'directed at understanding the conditions — linguistic, formal, historical and political — governing the writing of fiction in contemporary South Africa'. In turn, he offers the recent volume of interviews and essays he has edited as reflecting 'on an encounter in which the legacies of European modernism and modern linguistics enter the turbulent waters of colonialism and apartheid' (Attwell, Doubling the Point 3). This is an apt and elegant designation of the fictions' moment and space, and I use it as a starting point for considering the ways this fraught confluence is negotiated in self-reflexive novels which stage the impossibility of representation, estrange facility and work, in Coetzee's words, to 'demythologize history'.
Publication Year: 1996
Publication Date: 1996-01-01
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 28
AI Researcher Chatbot
Get quick answers to your questions about the article from our AI researcher chatbot