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About this product
Product Identifiers
PublisherBloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN-100313266840
ISBN-139780313266843
eBay Product ID (ePID)92893
Product Key Features
Number of Pages167 Pages
Publication NameCountries of the Mind : the Fiction of J. M. Coetzee
LanguageEnglish
Publication Year1989
SubjectGeneral, African
TypeTextbook
Subject AreaLiterary Criticism
AuthorDick Penner
SeriesContributions to the Study of World Literature Ser.
FormatHardcover
Dimensions
Item Height0.4 in
Item Weight15.1 Oz
Item Length9.2 in
Item Width6.1 in
Additional Product Features
Intended AudienceCollege Audience
LCCN88-034731
Dewey Edition19
Series Volume NumberNo. 32
Number of Volumes1 vol.
Volume Number32
Dewey Decimal823
Table Of ContentPreface Introduction John Coetzee: South African John Coetzee: Fictionist Dusklands: The Colonial Will to Power In the Heart of the Country: The Subversion of an African Farm Waiting for the Barbarians: Sight, Blindness, and Double-Thought Life and Times of Michael K: "We Must Cultivate Our Garden" Foe: The Absurd, the Muse, and the Colonial Dilemma End Game: The Great South African Novel and the Cockroach Bibliography Index
SynopsisSince the publication of his first novel in 1974, J. M. Coetzee has attained a reputation as one of the world's most respected novelists. The demand for his works is related to the world's interest in the politics, literature, culture, and society of South Africa. However, Coetzee's fictions remain significant, according to Penner, apart from their South African context, because of their artistry and because they transform urgent societal concerns into more enduring questions regarding colonialism and the relationships of mastery and servitude between cultures and individuals. Penner provides an in-depth, critical reading of Coetzee's five novels, drawing upon primary and critical texts on Western and South African literature and society. He argues that Coetzee's writings subvert traditional novel forms and thus become self-reflexive commentaries on the nature of fiction and fiction writing. Despite the diversity of their forms, Coetzee's novels all deal with the Cartesian division between the self and others that is at the base of all colonial and master/slave relationships. Many of Coetzee's protagonists who struggle to escape this Cartesian dichotomy and the colonizing mentality it fosters also hold a privileged status within their societies. As a result, they face a moral dilemma: even if they are personally innocent of any acts of oppression, they still share responsibility as members of the colonizing group. If Coetzee does not provide solutions or a direct call to action to resolve South Africa's enormous problems, Penner suggests, it is because Coetzee is striking at a more fundamental problem: the psychological, philosophical, and linguistic foundations of the colonial dilemma. Penner also deals with the question of Coetzee's identity as a South African writer, arguing that his tradition is the broader Western literary tradition of which South Africa is a part. This book should be read by anyone interested in Coetzee's fiction, modern fiction, and Third World and South African literature.