Review of J.M. Coetzee and the Paradox of Postcolonial Authorship, by Jane Poyner

Abstract

Jane Poyner's first book, the edited collection J.M Coetzee and the Idea of the Public Intellectual (Ohio UP, 2006) ranks among the most important contributions to the field of Coetzee criticism of the last five years. That book featured a rare (if even more than usually reticent) interview with the man himself; even more crucially, it brought together work by nearly every one of Coetzee's commentators who really seem to matter- Derek Attridge, David Attwell, Dominic Head, Mike Marais and Elleke Boehmer, to name a few. Taken as a whole, it heralded a shift in the kind of critical attention Coetzee's work would, henceforth, receive.