![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() In late modernity, what it might mean to conceive of oneself as belonging to a nation is an interesting question. At the conference, critic Derek Attridge suggested that Coetzee’s relocation to Australia has allowed him some distance from the oppressive political context that impressed itself upon his writing in South Africa, and that The Childhood of Jesus, with its Kafkaesque emptying of its protagonists’ subject positions, is Coetzee’s first truly Australian or “Adelaidean” novel. Since his move to Australia in 2002, Coetzee has in his fiction focused increasingly on Australian social and political contexts (Diary of a Bad Year, for example, discusses the Howard government and immigration), settings (Slow Man is located in Adelaide, Diary of a Bad Year in Sydney) and writers (particularly Patrick White and Gerald Murnane).Ĭoetzee’s engagement with his Australian context can be seen in more oblique ways, too. Perhaps surprisingly, given the ways in which Coetzee is closely associated with South Africa in the popular imagination, the answer to this question appeared to be a resounding yes. But does it make sense to think of Coetzee as an Australian writer? The event is a reflection of the deep esteem in which John Coetzee is held by Australian academia, just as Coetzee’s attendance throughout reflected his reciprocal respect for the institutions and individuals honouring him. ![]()
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