Narratives of Disability and Illness in the Fiction of J. M. Coetzee - by Pawel Wojtas

About the Book

A comprehensive study of the representations of disability and illness in the fiction of J. M. Coetzee

Book Synopsis

This study offers a detailed analysis of the fiction of J. M. Coetzee, including the novels of the South African and Australian periods, to demonstrate the development of Coetzee's engagement with the complexities of non-normative embodiment. In this illuminating monograph, Pawel Wojtas demonstrates the extent to which Coetzee's multifaceted depictions of disability offer a sustained critique of the ableist implications of political violence and neoliberal inclusionism alike. Exploring a wide range of notions, such as ocularnormativism, mute speech, eco-disability, disability Gothic, dismodernism, autogerontography, and bibliotherapy, Wojtas shows how Coetzee's 'disabled textuality' provokes a sustained meditation on various forms of cultural denigration of disability experience.

Review Quotes

In this first, full-length study of disability and illness in J. M. Coetzee's fiction, Pawel Wojtas explores the subject not just as theme, but as part of the textual surface and creative practice of the Nobel laureate. Informed by judicious use of Coetzee's notebooks and manuscripts, and by wide reading in cultural theory and Coetzee criticism, Wojtas offers generous, illuminating and conceptually inventive readings of the entire oeuvre.--David Attwell, University of York