I was born in the year J.M. Coetzee published his third novel, Waiting for the Barbarians. My mother read this dark, disturbing book with its multiple scenes of torture as she breastfed me at night, while my older sister slept and the house was quiet. It was 1980. The apartheid government had declared a state of emergency in the face of growing internal revolt, and my parents were thinking of leaving South Africa again.
For Ceridwen Dovey, J.M. Coetzee has ‘always been there’, ‘challenging the rest of us to keep up, resisting our attempts to pin him down.’ Her mother wrote the first critical study of Coetzee’s early novels, uncovering their startlingly original ways of bringing together literature and politics. With tenderness and insight, Dovey draws on this family history to explore the Nobel Prize–winner’s work.
In the Writers on Writers series, leading writers reflect on another Australian writer who has inspired and fascinated them. Provocative and crisp, these books start a fresh conversation between past and present, shed new light on the craft of writing, and introduce some intriguing and talented authors and their work.
Published by Black Inc. in association with the University of Melbourne and State Library Victoria.
Circa l’autore
Ceridwen Dovey was born in South Africa and grew up between South Africa and Australia. Her debut novel, Blood Kin, was published in fifteen countries and shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Award. Her second book, Only the Animals, won the inaugural 2014 Readings New Australian Writing Award, and her new novel, In the Garden of the Fugitives, was published earlier this year. She writes non-fiction regularly for newyorker.com and The Monthly, and lives in Sydney.
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