From race to grace : the other J M Coetzee

• Main Author: Janari, Barbara
• Other Authors: Watson, Stephen
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: University of Cape Town 2014
• Subjects: Includes bibliographical references (leaves 65-70).
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/8020

One of the notable features of JM Coetzee's work is the portrayal in his novels, particularly in his 1999 Booker Prize-winning novel, Disgrace, of worlds that often seem bleak and bereft of redemption. In this dissertation I will argue that there is a resonance in Coetzee's writing that goes beyond the political and historical and that adds another dimension to his work. The focus of my dissertation will be an attempt to account for this other 'dimension' within the broader socio-political-historical nexus that informs much of his work. I will argue that this other dimension represents an ongoing conccrn with the questions of redemption and salvation, particularly as they are manifested in his latcr works, Disgrace and Elizabeth Costello. These concerns, however, are not just a consequence of Coetzee's evolving thought. As I will show, they are present in his earlier texts as well. To this end, I will consider the ways in which the themes of redemption and salvation, in the specifically religious and Christian sense of these words, also resonate in In the Heart of the Country (1977) and Life and Times of Michael K (1983).