J M Coetzee and African Studies

Abstract

If, to make his book convincing, there needs to be a greasepot swinging under the bed of the wagon as it bumps across the stones of the Karoo, he will do the grease-pot. If there have to be cicadas trilling in the tree under which they stop at noon, he will do the cicadas. The creak of the grease-pot, the trilling of the cicadasthose he is confident he can bring off. The difficult part will be to give to the whole the aura that will get it onto the shelves and thus into the history of the world: the aura of truth.