Interview With Coetzee

An Interview with J. M.
Coetzee
Author(s): Richard Begam and J. M. Coetzee
Source: Contemporary Literature, Vol. 33, No. 3 (Autumn, 1992), pp. 419-431
Published by: University of Wisconsin Press
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an interview with
J. M. COETZEE
Conducted by Richard Be
J M. Coetzee is one of the leading n

glish today. Born in Cape Town, South
educated at the University of Cape To
B.A. and M.A. degrees in English
later at the University of Texas-Austin, w
English. Coetzee's first work of fiction
1974. Since then he has published five n
Country (1977), which was awarded South
ing for the Barbarians (1980); Life and Times
of Britain's Booker Prize and France's P
(1986); and Age of Iron (1990). Coetzee h
career as a critic and scholar. In 1972 he
English at the University of Cape Town
the position of Professor of General Liter
cles in the fields of literature and linguis
journals as Comparative Literature, Journal of
of Modern Literature, Modern Language N
length work of criticism, White Writing
versity Press in 1988, and a second volu
Point, will be brought out by Harvard Un
The following interview, conducted ov
1991, grew out of a series of written exch
J. M. Coetzee in Nice, France, on June 14
Q. I'd like to begin by asking about what

the implications of this phrase) the instit
Copyright ? J. M. Coetzee
. . .... .. . i~iii~iiiii........ ..i
ii. .................
J M. CO0 E T Z EE
420 * CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE
Up until fairly recently, it was rare fo

professor of literature or for a profess
inative writer. Indeed, many of the
thinking of Joyce, Pound, Eliot, an
academic careers precisely in favor of
seems to have changed: writing and pr
sense incompatible. Saul Bellow, Mil
and, of course, you are all professors o
of literature. Why do you think this sh
any, are its broader implications for lit
A. We should distinguish among car

on the strength of their books but als
the public eye, are offered academic
and plenty of time for their own wor
ginnings of their careers elect the acad
environment in which to practice th
committed scholars who only later dis
Why do so many writers gravitate
their own reasons, universities want t
led the way in taking writers on boar
tries have followed suit. Today univer
state, through the diplomatic service a
more clumsily to do-provide patron
Living in a country where patronage o
than in the U.S., I'm not in a good
implications of the phenomenon. But e
longer starve in garrets. Some people m
good thing, that being an artist has be
in the West. I'm not sure I agree. It's a
age the arts and the life of the mind
age is certainly one of the more admir
the U.S.
Q. Literary criticism is, at least in America, very much in a state of

upheaval at the moment. Almost no one agrees on how to read liter-
ature, on what literature is, even on whether literature is. How is
this revolution in method and approach playing itself out in South
COETZEE * 421
Africa, and has it affected the way y

erature?
A. Forgive me if I don't look on the upheaval you describe as se-

riously as your question invites me to. If it is a revolution, it is an
institutionalized revolution, part of the turnover in theories, can-
ons, reputations, et cetera required by the system we have created.
I will take it more seriously when it turns its back upon the institu-
tion that hosts it, namely the university. It is a revolution only in a
cyclical sense. I would prefer to call it a debate, a heated, perhaps
intemperate professional debate within the host institution.
In South Africa, where the same debate is taking place, there is
pressure not only for an African or Africanized literary canon, but
for a literature devoted to the lives and needs of ordinary people, a
literature of the mundane. For my own part, I don't in the least
object to writers writing about ordinary life and ordinary people.
The question is, who is ordinary? In the deepest sense, we are all
ordinary: we are born, live, die; we fall in love, fall out of love; and
so forth. In other words, I balk at a sociological definition of the
ordinary.
Q. Would you say that Kafka and Beckett are, "in the deepest
sense," writers of the "ordinary"? And is there a distinction to be
made between "ordinary"--insofar as it represents conditions com-
mon to all men and women-and "universal"?
A. In the deepest sense, yes, Kafka and Beckett are writers of

ordinary-of the experience of being alive, of intimations of d
and the hereafter. To make this point, it doesn't seem to me nec
sary to invoke the notion of the universal.
Q. At one point in White Writing you say, "Our craft is all in r

ing the other: gaps, inverses, undersides; the veiled, the dark
buried, the feminine; alterities."1 Many critics in the United Sta
and Europe have recently announced that poststructuralism
reading of alterities) is dead, and that the experiments it pro
1. J. M. Coetzee, White Writing: On the Culture of Letters in South Africa (New H

Yale UP, 1988) 81; hereafter cited in the text.
have now been discredited, particular

de Man's collaborationist past. What
A. I am not a philosopher-I have n

intellectual equipment-and literary th
ing. From what you call poststructur
what I can understand, what I can a
the historical moment of a particular
a task beyond me, particularly from
of Africa. I haven't read the essays by
what I have read about them it see
whether they "discredit" poststructu
a philosophical one.
Q. One of the principal grounds on

been attacked is, indeed, political. D
litical quietism, Foucault of political p
on the left have charged that poststr
cal commitment because it always t
energies are contained or absorbed
system is represented by the traditio
rida) or by the authorized discourse
ously standing behind this critique
"The philosophers have only interpre
the point, however, is to change it
think this is a fair criticism of poststr
to interpret the world, or should th
writer, et cetera) be responsible for ch
A. I don't know Derrida's writing

enough to judge whether he is a polit
ings on South Africa don't support su
he may be a pessimist, but the real qu
right. It is one thing to criticize Fouca
to criticize him for not having an opt
Should philosophers be expected to
expectation seems to me extravagan
the world: he reinterpreted it, then o
whether the attack on poststructural
COETZEE * 423
the criterion has never been whether

it works.
Q. Does the political attack on poststructuralism work? Has it been

effective, particularly within the context of South African letters?
A. Among South African critics, there is a cleavage between those

who pay attention to Derrida and poststructuralism in general, and
those who say there is not enough time for all that subtlety, and
anyway this is Africa, things are different here.
Q. We've been speaking in a general way about theory and criti-

cism, but I'd now like to turn to your own book-length study in this
field, White Writing. Toward the end of your introduction you say
that "white writing [does not] imply the existence of a body of writ-
ing different in nature from black writing. White writing is white
only insofar as it is generated by the concerns of people no longer
European, not yet African" [11]. This formulation carries with it, at
least to my ear, a Derridean resonance. Indeed it sounds very much
like Derrida's diffrrance, that fugitive term which no longer occupies
a place within the Western metaphysical tradition but which has not
yet established itself on an alternative ground. Do you see affinities
between your idea of white writing and the larger discourse of post-
structuralism?
A. Let me at once say that I don't see White Writing as making any
contribution to literary theory. I use the phrase "white writing" not
with any theoretical intent but-as I would hope emerges from the
definition you quote-as a catchall term for a certain historically
circumscribed point of departure in writing about (South) Africa,
and perhaps about colonized worlds in general. There are certainly
affinities between what I say in the book and the larger enterprise of
poststructuralism, but only in the sense that I have taken over-
perhaps just pilfered-and used certain ideas from contemporary
criticism.
Q. In White Writing you indicate that a "Discourse of the Cape"

arose in the early colonial period in South Africa. If I've correctly
understood you, this discourse involves the imposition of a Euro-
centric conceptual scheme-as oppos

gories"-on the landscape and indig
Does a species of the Discourse of the
does, is the white South African write
A. What I call the Discourse of the

proto-anthropological discourse, an
that anthropology, as a science of ma
son, continues to flourish. There ar
Africans who trap themselves inside
"rational," well-meaning way, about b
many writers among their number, o
Q. One of the consequences (or shou

writing is what you call the "occlu
phors you frequently use to descri
and silence. Presumably Waiting for
level dramatize just such an occlusio
white narrator who fails to see or he
cially explores the problem of how to
narrative realization-how, in effect,
been closed off or (better) cut off. Is
sion? Must blackness inevitably re
South African writer?
A. There is nothing about blackness or whiteness in Waiting for the

Barbarians. The Magistrate and the girl could as well be Russian and
Kirghiz, or Han and Mongol, or Turk and Arab, or Arab and Berber.
In Foe, Susan and Friday are "white" and "black." They are also
"woman" and "man," "free" and "slave," "European" and "African."
Which of these-what shall I call them?-identity pairs-is primary?
Is blackness blankness? In itself the question seems meaningless to
me. To decide that humanity falls "naturally" into three divisions,
white, black, and yellow, or into two, men and women, means laps-
ing straight back into the Discourse of the Cape, or a version of it.
Q. Let me see if I can make the question meaningful. You have

observed that in white writing "the black man becomes a shadowy
presence" and that "silence about the black man" and "blindness to
COETZEE * 425
the color black" are a part of the

[White Writing 5]. "Silence" and "
your discussion of how "white" A
cans, or, if you prefer, how the col
My question is, must the black man
the white African writer? Is there a
A. Your question: Must the black

ence to the white South African wr
blacks and whites? Surely it is colon
course of the Cape is a variety) that
answer is: The black is black as long
as white.
Q. In one chapter in White Writing, you examine the way in which

the writer attempts to represent what is linguistically other. You
label this process "transfer" and define it "as the rendering of (imag-
ined) foreign speech in an English stylistically marked to remind
the reader of the (imagined) foreign original" [117]. Transfer be-
comes especially problematic when it involves a white South Afri-
can rendering the "foreign speech" of a black South African. There
seem to be at least two dangers in transfer: the writer may overstate
the foreignness of black speech (thereby caricaturing it as Alan
Paton does), or the writer may understate that foreignness (thereby
assimilating it as Mikro does). Is there a middle course, or does
transfer inevitably involve distortion?
A. Transfer is a special case of translation. Distortion is built into

all translation. There is no question about that. We cannot produce
"pure" translations free of distortion. The best we can do is to pro-
duce translations that, for our time, do a minimum of distortion,
while being aware, in a conceptual way, of the varieties of distortion
we have introduced. The kind of distortion I pick out in Alan Paton
isn't particularly a South African phenomenon: it occurs in almost
all colonial writing (the speech of American Indians as represented
by Fenimore Cooper, for instance). As for Mikro, one must be care-
ful: the thought patterns he pretends to transcribe are "in" Afri-
kaans already. His distortion is precisely that he marks them as
foreign.
Q. Much of your discussion of South

the issue of the land, whether this in
Farm Novel and the Plaasroman or id
rican landscape is represented. Inde
land-as setting, subject, actor-plays
African literature than it does even i
can literature. Do you feel that this f
mately an issue of who shall possess t
ultimately a political issue?
A. Until well after 1945, South Afric
every way that counted. So it is not surp
ature of South Africa up to 1945 con
land ownership, particularly the owne
emotive subject today. But it has, in a
raphy: to feed a population of thirty-
longer afford to be farmed by sma
farmed extensively. The real issue is th
land but who is to own the resources
whether ownership is to be individua
Q. You have suggested that there i

South African landscape. At one lev
ethnocentrism: Europeans cannot r
cause they see with a gaze which is n
tation. Do you think that at another
is more general and might be rela
called the "destitution of the myth o
perspective, there is no landscape
mediation, which is African in its "
ral" or "true" language of the Cape.
A. Certainly. The writers and artis
within a romantic aesthetic which de
of depth (without depth you cannot
tion of a "true" speech which emerge
Q. How do you position yourself w

aesthetic? What is to be gained (or lo
landscape in terms of "depths" and
COETZEE * 427
A. I feel very far from that kind of
Q. A lot of the issues we've been di

tion of the relation between the po
In a recent article, Kwame Anthon
"postmodernism" is the same as th
What do you think? If there are fu
these two terms, do you see importan
A. I know what "postcolonial" m

"postcolonialism" means. (Postcolon
ther way, the word makes no sense
but the only way in which I can pose
the form, is the post- in "postmodern
colonial"? Trivially, I suppose the ans
after modernism, after colonialism
hausted itself, and the European co
selves, though in a different sense, i
where this line of inquiry leads. (I
makes a good case for regarding a
and postmodernism as mistaken.)
Q. I also don't see much of a conne

and the postmodern, though the co
who draw it point (less trivially?) to
belatedness in both postcolonial and
of writing under the influence of a s
thrown off. Obviously at some level
ature, but it seems especially pron
modern and postcolonial. Then again
strikes a contemporary.
A. Agreed. I think you put it very
Q. The issue of canonicity or "gre

controversy in the American univers
focused on a single question: Is there
with which students in the humaniti
ies, should be familiar? Critics of c
Western tradition not only excludes

also actively promotes sexism and rac
ics have attacked the very idea of aest
have argued that we need to be more
we read and teach texts. How has t
itself felt in South Africa? What are
A. You ask about the debate on the

think it would be fair to say that it
less radically than in the United Sta
ropean or Anglo-American literature
most South Africans, in addition, a li
and less radically because the critiq
oped, or at least less articulate, tendi
often from scholars working in the
I should mention one complication
States-in my limited experience-th
(with its own culture and therefore i
accepted in what, by South African s
unexamined way. In South Africa, o
Left, there is a strongly skeptical att
groups ("tribes," "peoples," "races,
and a correspondingly strong deconst
ries (and literatures) of such group
having lived for forty years under
tional, and cultural policies were base
(God-given) groups with separate d
have something to learn from the Sou
I am sure that in South Africa in (say
canon will occupy a more marginal po
see its place as being taken by some a
ever. In non-Islamic Africa, where w
the notion of literature must inevitab
either shrink or expand.
To turn to my own history, I was an
canon, E R. Leavis's Great Tradition, w
I reacted against it. Almost all my cr
that narrow (and now outdated) canon
COETZEE * 429
are "greater" than others, the questio

me. There are certainly some books t
others, or more interesting to me, an
read and teach. I don't conceive of my
more a teacher of reading-so I don
toward some ideal corpus or other.
Q. How do you decide which boo

which books are less interesting? Is t
vidual taste, or are there general crit
evaluations? And, could you expand
ing reading as opposed to teaching lit
A. There are certainly no criteria f

the dictum from Terence mean if not
ing everything that human beings
my life has become more and more n
tended to find books that address q
writing life interesting. As for the te
gest that it is a good idea for student
of someone else reading intently an
what emerges from that reading fost
close reading. But I hasten to add tha
cation than that: I don't think it is
posed to one reading teacher after an
Q. Recent criticism has developed a

monwealth," "postcolonial," and "Thir
erature coming out of Asia, Africa
edging that each of these terms invo
think it makes sense to group this li
Is there a Commonwealth, a postcolon
A. "Commonwealth" is a literary
it would be hard to trace what int
to promote it, and for what ends.
World" strike me as Western-centered. I'd be interested to hear how
Koreans or Thais respond to contemporary Korean or Thai art be-

ing called postcolonial or Third World.
Q. We have heard for some time now

haustion" and the "death of the novel." A number of critics have ar-
gued that literature, particularly in the First World, has fallen into
a debilitating narcissism, that it has become so obsessed with the
"problematic" of its own textual production that it has lost touch
with larger moral, political, social, and philosophical concerns. The
effect-so the argument goes-is a literature which has cut itself off
from a general reading public, a literature which is of interest only
to the academic. What do you think?
A. To an extent this observation strikes me as correct; and it links

back to your question about the writer and the academy. Nowadays,
a writer in the West does not have to depend wholly on the number
of books he sells to make a living. To that extent, he is liberated to
pursue his own interests. Those interests may be speculative, phil-
osophical, "literary" (as in the phrase "excessively literary"); they
may even, from a certain point of view, be narcissistic. I suppose
that, under these circumstances, writers ought to be wary and ask
themselves every now and again whether they are not cutting them-
selves off from real human concerns. But, when we look around,
who are in fact the writers who have lost themselves in narcissism?
Few that I can name. And to take the point one step further, I think
it is possible to ask oneself that very question and come back with
a perfectly serious answer: yes, I may indeed be cutting myself off,
at least from today's readers; nevertheless, what I am engaged in
doing is more important than maintaining that contact.
Q. As a corollary to the last question: those who regard First World

literature as terminally exhausted find a welcome antidote in what
they see as a more robust and vital Third World literature. Here
Francis Fukuyama's observations on the "end of history" become
important. The argument might be stated as follows: because ideo-
logical conflict has resolved itself in the First World, its literature
has ceased to be politically and historically engaged; whereas be-
cause ideological conflict is still alive in the Third World (though not
for long, Fukuyama believes), its literature continues to debate and
explore fundamental issues. Of course the larger assumption be-
hind this argument is that art is born out of at least a minimum level
COETZEE * 431
of conflict, that art depends to some

lization. Again, what is your view?
A. I wouldn't phrase the question in

is not ideological conflict in a given
of burning issues, issues felt deeply
cific (political issues, for instance) or
death, for instance) or internal to
that, as one reads the fiction reviews
or the New York Times Book Review,
of novels being written in the U.K. a
in the larger perspective, might just
ten. When one regards democracie
it is hard to imagine what a writer
sues-as opposed to general human o
versal issues-could possibly write a
would not give up a literature of ago
and social justice? And anyway, just
of the Great Novel, a great novelist
from Denmark or Switzerland, to pr

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An Interview with J. M.

J M. Coetzee is one of the leading n

Q. I'd like to begin by asking about what

Up until fairly recently, it was rare fo

A. We should distinguish among car

Q. Literary criticism is, at least in America, very much in a state of

Africa, and has it affected the way y

A. Forgive me if I don't look on the upheaval you describe as se-

A. In the deepest sense, yes, Kafka and Beckett are writers of

Q. At one point in White Writing you say, "Our craft is all in r

1. J. M. Coetzee, White Writing: On the Culture of Letters in South Africa (New H

have now been discredited, particular

A. I am not a philosopher-I have n

Q. One of the principal grounds on

A. I don't know Derrida's writing

the criterion has never been whether

Q. Does the political attack on poststructuralism work? Has it been

A. Among South African critics, there is a cleavage between those

Q. We've been speaking in a general way about theory and criti-

Q. In White Writing you indicate that a "Discourse of the Cape"

centric conceptual scheme-as oppos

A. What I call the Discourse of the

Q. One of the consequences (or shou

A. There is nothing about blackness or whiteness in Waiting for the

Q. Let me see if I can make the question meaningful. You have

the color black" are a part of the

A. Your question: Must the black

Q. In one chapter in White Writing, you examine the way in which

A. Transfer is a special case of translation. Distortion is built into

Q. Much of your discussion of South

Q. You have suggested that there i

Q. How do you position yourself w

A. I feel very far from that kind of

Q. A lot of the issues we've been di

A. I know what "postcolonial" m

Q. I also don't see much of a conne

A. Agreed. I think you put it very

Q. The issue of canonicity or "gre

Western tradition not only excludes

A. You ask about the debate on the

are "greater" than others, the questio

Q. How do you decide which boo

A. There are certainly no criteria f

Q. Recent criticism has developed a

Koreans or Thais respond to contemporary Korean or Thai art be-

Q. We have heard for some time now

A. To an extent this observation strikes me as correct; and it links

Q. As a corollary to the last question: those who regard First World

of conflict, that art depends to some

A. I wouldn't phrase the question in

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