Dusklands | Literary Criticism & Book Review

Dusklands Critical Overview

Coetzee's first novel Dusklands did not receive a lot of international critical attention. This may have been due more to the fact that he published in South Africa than to the content of his work. Since that time, however, and especially since he won the Booker Prize for his third novel Life and Times of Michael K, Coetzee has become an often critiqued author. For instance, in a summary of Coetzee's body of work, Kristjana Gunnars for World Literature Today describes Coetzee's style and impact in this way, "J. M. Coetzee's fiction strips bare the veneer that protects us, and it ventures unflinchingly into territory of mind and experience most of us are afraid to face." Gunnars further comments on a descriptive word that is frequently used to depict Coetzee's style of writing. That word is sparse. However, Gunnars explains that since Coetzee's subject matter usually involves human suffering, there...
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