In the Middle of Nowhere

Relying on the author's personal recollections as well as on J.M. Coetzee's autobiographical and fictional works, this book deals with Coetzee's formation as a writer of international prominence, whose life and writing career began in South Africa. Drawing on Coetzee's "South African" writings from Dusklands through Disgrace, the book considers Coetzee's initial positioning in provincial South African political and literary culture as well as his drastic reframing of South African "letters" and his breakout into a global career culminating in the award of the Nobel Prize in 2003. The book considers Coetzee almost exclusively in relation to the South Africa from which he emigrated in 1999, but also emphasizes his momentous revision and undoing of the marginalized genre of "South African Literature" in the service of global authorship. Written in the conviction that Coetzee's "South African" works remain his most impassioned and momentous ones, this book seeks to come to terms with their conditions of possibility and distinctive achievement.

Jonathan Crewe is the Leon Black Emeritus Professor of Shakespearean Studies at Dartmouth College. Born in South Africa, he received his undergraduate education at the University of Natal, and then completed his graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He has written numerous books and articles on early modern literature, including Shakespeare, and on South African writing.

Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter 1: Arrival
Chapter 2: Settling In
Chapter 3: Flashbacks
Chapter 4: Boyhood
Chapter 5: Disgrace
Chapter 6: Master Classes: White Writing