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Nadine Gordimer published in 2010 a collection of literary essays spanning for more than half a century, one of which was her 1984 review of J. M. Coetzee’s The Life & Times of Michael K. Interestingly enough, she added a sentence to what she had written more than two decades ago: “Postscript: J. M. Coetzee took Australian citizenship in 2006.” It is hardly a news that Coetzee left South Africa and settled down in Australia, for anybody interested in Coetzee is surely aware of it. Yet Gordimer chooses to problematize it and seems to suggest the need to reappraise Coetzee’s novel in light that he is no longer a South African author.
This paper not only explores in what ways The Life & Times of Michael K is related to the author’s relocation but attempts to see Coetzee’s novel in light of two antithetical forces: the centripetal force of Coetzee’s novel trying to “take up residence in a world where a living play of feelings and ideas is possible” and the centrifugal force of South African literature in which his novels are swallowed “into a political discourse.” This paper ultimately suggests that Coetzee’s novel derives its extraordinary singularity from a tension between two contradictory forces engaged in a deadly but creative fight against each other. Yet it remains to be seen, as David Attwell suggests, whether in his adopted country Coetzee will ever “produce as rich a harvest” as he has done in his native country. It is in this respect that Gordimer’s rather harsh and ironic words will need to be taken into serious account.