J.M. Coetzee and the life of writing
Subtitle: face-to-face with time
By: David Attwell
Published: 2015
Language: eng
Number of pages: 248
ISBN-13: 9780525429616
Subjects: Authorship; Biography in literature; Criticism and interpretation; South African Authors; Biography
Description: "J.M. Coetzee is one of the most intriguing of authors in all of world literature. Now, in J.M. Coetzee and the Life of Writing, David Attwell illuminates 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 Ransom Center of the University of Texas at Austin - Attwell produces a fascinating story of the creative trajectory and the life out of which the fiction was engendered. He shows convincingly that all of Coetzee's work is autobiographical, the memoirs being continuous with the fictions, and that his writing proceeds with self-conscious and never-ending reflection. This is a moving and readable account which is bound to change the way Coetzee is read, by the critics and general reader alike"--
Notes: Originally published: Auckland Park, South Africa : Jacana, 2015.

Includes bibliography (pages 239-242) and index.
Table of contents: title: Preface: the Coetzee papers; title: An alphabet of trees: autobiography: the uses of impersonality; title: Recusant Afrikaners: identity drift; title: 1 January 1970: the beginning - Dusklands; title: Karoo: the beloved landscape: Life & times of Michael K, In the heart of the country; title: 'The burning of the books': censorship in the life of writing; title: Writing revolution - Waiting for the barbarians; title: Suburban bandit: Michael K as outlaw; title: Crusoe, Defoe, Friday - Foe; title: Mother : Age of iron; title: Father : Summertime; title: The shot tower : The master of Petersburg; title: Migrations: irreconcilable lives: Elizabeth Costello, Disgrace; title: The third stage: Australia: Slow man, Diary of a bad year, The childhood of Jesus.