“Quando ci sono di mezzo gli uomini e il sesso, David, non mi meraviglio più di niente. Forse per gli uomini odiare le donne rende la cosa più eccitante. Tu sei un uomo, dovresti saperlo. Quando hai un rapporto sessuale con una persona che non conosci, quando la intrappoli, la tieni ferma, ti butti su di lei con tutto il tuo peso... Non è un po' come ucciderla? Come piantare un coltello? Per poi andartene lasciandoti dietro un corpo coperto di sangue... Non è un po' come un omicidio? Non ti dà l'inebriante sensazione di averla passata liscia?” ViolenceItalianRapeDisgraceCoetzeeVergogna Book:Disgrace Source: Disgrace
“I found 'The Twin' sitting on a coffee table at a writers' colony in 2009. It carried praise from J.M. Coetzee. That seemed ample justification for using it to avoid my own writing. I finished it - weeping - a day later, and I've been puzzling over its powerful hold on me ever since.” WritingFoundMy OwnPowerfulSittingPraiseTablesFinishedCoffeeOver ItJustificationTwinsWeepingColonyPuzzlingCoetzee Author:Amy Waldman
“Disgrace is a subtle, multi-layered story, as much concerned with politics as it is with the itch of male flesh. Coetzee's prose is chaste and lyrical without being self- conscious: it is a relief to encounter writing as quietly stylish as this. I was not totally convinced by Lurie's musical abilities, with regard to his proposed opera, but that is my sole complaint.” WritingSelfStoriesAbilityConsciousConcernedRegardMalesMusicalConvincedFleshEncountersProseReliefSubtleOperaSoleComplaintsDisgraceSelf ConsciousLyricalChasteStylishMusical AbilityCoetzee Author:Paul Bailey
“Notable American Women is a weird nougat of a book that suggests Coetzee, Kafka, Beckett, Barthelme, O'Brien, Orwell, Paley, Borges-and none of them exactly. Finally you just have to chew it for its own private juice.” BookJuiceNotableAmerican WomanBeckettBorgesCoetzee Author:Padgett Powell
“Read non-fiction. History, biology, entomology, mineralogy, paleontology. Get a bodyguard and do fieldwork. Find your inner fish. Don't publish too soon. Not before you have read Thomas Mann in any case. Learn by copying, sentence by sentence some of the masters. Copy Coetzee's or Sebald's sentences and see what happens to your story. Consider creative non-fiction if you want to stay in South Africa. It might be the way to go. Never neglect back and hamstring exercises, otherwise you won't be able to write your novel. One needs one's buttocks to think.” IfsThinkingWayWantNeedsWritingStoriesMightHappensAbleFictionCasesNovelCreativeMastersExerciseSouthFishesSentencesBiologyNeglectCopiesSouth AfricaPublishNon FictionCopyingBodyguardPaleontologyButtocksFieldworkHamstringsCoetzee Author:Marlene van Niekerk
“I don't think anybody says to Coetzee or Dostoyevsky or Kafka, "Your characters aren't likeable." It's not about your character winning a popularity contest. That's not the writer's job.” ThinkingCharacterJobsWinningPopularityContestsLikeableDostoyevskyPopularity ContestCoetzee Author:Lynne Tillman
“I'm grateful for the likes of Kundera, Murnane, Markson, Berger, and, in his recent work, Coetzee. But no matter how celebrated they are, critics still consider them askance. Elizabeth Costello, for example, is a great novel, but it got quite a critical panning when it was published. The complaint was that it was simply a book of speeches, without the machinery of conventional fiction. Markson's books are compilations of facts and alleged facts, very artfully.” StillsBookMatterFactsFictionNovelExampleSpeechGratefulCriticsCriticalLikesConventionalComplaintsMachineryGreat NovelsCompilationCoetzee Author:Teju Cole
“There are writers I return to no matter what I'm working on, writers like the South African J.M. Coetzee. He has an ability to make you feel that he is writing for you alone.” FeelsWritingMatterAbilityReturnNo Matter WhatSouthSouth AfricaCoetzee Author:Laila Lalami
“Out of all the fighters that I have developed, clothed, financed, Gerrie Coetzee is the only one who had the decency to say 'thanks'.” ThanksFighterBoxingDecencyCoetzee Author:Don King