Political Bodies and the Body Politic in J. M. Coetzee's Novels

Conducting readings of seven novels by South African writer J.M. Coetzee, the author argues that the question of how the other (particularly the body of the other) can be represented without losing its otherness has been a key theme of his work. Furthermore, the body, in Coetzee's work, serves as a symbol of the (South African) body politic, with physical deformity of the individual body standing in for state violence and oppression. Other motifs that reflect this suggestion of the individual body as the body politic are placelessness/homelessness and absence of the mother and/or childlessness. Distributed in North America by ISBS. Annotation c2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)