As well as the books featuring his alter ego, Elizabeth Costello, he has written a trilogy of what his publisher describes as "fictionalised memoir": Boyhood (1997), Youth (2002) and, now, Summertime. Much of his fiction, especially up to and including Disgrace (1999), could be described as anti-allegorical the stories have the form of allegories, but defy simple allegorical interpretation.Īnother strand in Coetzee's work, which has become increasingly prominent over the decade since Disgrace, could be called anti-autobiographical. Many of his novels, too, imply that the best way to explore intractable ethical problems may be in fiction, if only because fiction helps to resist the pretence that there are easy answers to difficult questions, if, indeed, there are any answers at all. Invited to give the Tanner Lectures at Princeton a few years earlier, he had similarly read a pair of stories - about a fictional novelist, Elizabeth Costello, giving two lectures on animal rights. When he won the Nobel in 2003, he showed up at the ceremony but instead of giving the customary lecture read a story about Robinson Crusoe. He didn't turn up to collect the award either time he won the Booker Prize. J M Coetzee is often described as reclusive, though elusive might be a better word.
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