The Novel in Africa

Photo of J M Coetzee.

The Novel in Africa

J.M. Coetzee

The Novel in Africa is the text of November 1998’s Una’s Lecture, delivered by South African novelist J.M. Coetzee. While a Coetzee text, one critic notes, “typically produces irritation or discomfort,” The Novel in Africa produces surprise as well: the lecture is embedded in a fiction, and functions as both a lecture and a segment in a short story.