J. M. Coetzee's Politics of Life and Late Modernism in the Contemporary Novel

J. M. Coetzee's career as an academic and novelist is explored in this book, which argues for a rethinking of his indebtedness to literary modernism in terms of a politics of life. Farrant identifies a strain of late modernism exemplified by Kafka and Beckett and shows how Coetzee's writings engage with the concept of life in an agonistic way, involving an entanglement of politics and ethics. This politics of life yields a new literary cosmopolitanism for the twenty-first century, emphasising finitude and contingency as fundamental to the way we live together.

Format: Hardback
Length: 272 pages
Publication date: 01 March 2024
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

J. M. Coetzee's career as both an academic and a novelist is explored in this book, which contends that his debt to literary modernism must be reevaluated in terms of a politics of life. Farrant identifies a particular strain of late modernism, exemplified by Kafka and Beckett, and argues that Coetzee's writings consistently engage with the concept of life in an agonistic manner, intertwining politics and ethics in a way that goes beyond the singular theoretical frameworks often applied to him, such as postcolonialism, posthumanism, and animal studies. Throughout his work, Coetzee explores themes of modernity and colonialism, storytelling and life writing, human and non-human life, religion, and post-Enlightenment subjectivity, resulting in a new literary cosmopolitanism for the twenty-first century. This cosmopolitanism emphasizes finitude and contingency as fundamental to the way we live together, offering a powerful commentary on our interrelatedness.

Weight: 562g
Dimension: 162 x 241 x 21 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781399507783