• Coetzee
• Critical writing
• Ethical Discourse
• Literature
• Other

La tesi mira ad analizzare il discorso etico negli scritti dello scrittore sudafricano J.M. Coetzee, attraverso l'attenta analisi di alcune delle sue opere più famose: Waiting for the Barbarians, Foe, Life & Times of Michael K e Disgrace.
Si analizzano le opere critiche dei titoli menzionati sopra di autori che hanno lavorato strettamente con lo scrittore Coetzee, premio nobel nel 2003, Derek Attridge e David Attwell fra i tanti, per determinare come ci si arriva a parlare di discorso etico, dallo stile inconfondibile e dialogico, apprezzato ma anche criticato dai lettori per i temi delicati trattati.

This paper gives a brief survey of the contrasting and polemical critical reception of Coetzee’s novels and helps gauge the stakes of Coetzee’s literary involvement in such a highly politicized atmosphere along the interplay between textuality and history. In several passages Coetzee’s language manifests itself as an unfathomable and enigmatic sign, while meaning emerges through a historically situated medium. What Coetzee is staging, time and again, in his novels is precisely a questioning of the act of thinking. In doing so, he acknowledges his allegiance to the Western tradition (both philosophical and literary) without however engaging in a mere repetition or a continuation of it. In Chapter One, the relevance of Coetzee's writings in South Africa is established by looking into the important features and style and register of his fiction. I have examined major themes present in the South African writer’s work while giving an overview of the issues which have seen scholars and critics, such as Clarkson, Bertens, McGrath, Dovey and Kossew, debate over and engage with his texts. In Chapter Two, I have investigated critical texts by Hall, Ashcroft, Fanon and Gadamer which have clarified important lexis which have aided the discussion on two important novels such as Waiting for the Barbarians and Foe. Through research I have defined cultural identity and how identifying with the unknown “Other” requires abandoning one’s own positioning. Chapter Three deals with Life & Times of Michael K, where the main character’s position of non-power and his attempted withdrawal from the political stage reflect the social structures of South Africa. Chapter Four offers background information on the history of Apartheid with a brief overview of important historical happening that are shaping the post-Apartheid South Africa. Storytelling allows Coetzee to invoke and interrogate the grand themes of Western philosophy without ever aspiring to overcome them or refute them. In this process, Coetzee’s contribution provides food for thought is set within the fields of ethics. I have established how this involvement is, in itself, an affirmation of the value of literary discourse within philosophical and ethical debates.