Changing Geographies, Changing Mindsets: J. M. Coetzee’s South African and Australian Years
Abstract
J.M. Coetzee, quite a senior but still a prolific author of our time, relentlessly pursues solutions to the present problems of multinational, multicultural settings using his texts as means, and this feature of him makes Coetzee a living sage, a dependable source for the readers to see and discuss the so-called problems through his lenses. Considering his four novels as the starting point of this article we aim to compare the problems displayed in his South African years (between 1990-1999) in Age of Iron and Disgrace to his novels produced in his Australian years (between 2005-2007) in the Slow Man and the Diary of a Bad Year. The position of the white- elite Westerner will be the main focus in the discussion in changing geographies and decades in the article, however, it will be clarified as well that it is Coetzee’s unchanging motto to provide his reader with different points of views through the challenging characters he places next to his chosen protagonist.
Keywords
J.M.Coetzee,Postcolonial,Age of Iron,Disgrace,Slow Man,Diary of a Bad Year
References
- Bibliography
- Main Sources
- Coetzee, J. M. (2018). Age of Iron. London: Penguin Books.
- Coetzee, J. M.(2007). Diary of a Bad Year. Penguin Books.
- Coetzee, J. M. (2000). Disgrace. Vintage.
- Coetzee, J. M. (2005). Slow Man. Random House.
- Secondary Sources
- Baudrillard, J. (1994). Simulacra and Simulation. University of Michigan Press.
- Berger, I. (2009). South Africa in World History. New York: Oxford University Press.
- Clark, N. L., & Worger, W. H. (2013). South Africa: The Rise and Fall of Apartheid. London: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group.