«Positioning is, above all, a matter of representation»: J. M. Coetzee and the Transformative Power of Transgression

Abstract

Cultural identity is constructed through and within representation, hence the great interest of postcolonial intellectuals in its creative and ideological potential. In the present essay, I read J. M. Coetzee’s novels as innovative sites of transgression that open up an alternative space of interpretation of the literary devices he employs as a source for understanding and illustrating his moral and ethical position. Although he avoids explicit positioning in a binary political thinking and does not publicly establish a relationship between his ideological views and his fiction, the narrative strategies he adopts to represent experiences of suffering and pain speak for themselves. His fiction reveals the author’s special interest in the process of creation and interpretation of meaning and in the power of writing. Self-reflexiveness as one of the main features of his texts draws the reader’s attention to the linguistic status of representation and suggests that our only access to past events, including historical events, is through discourse.