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'I am not a story', but a formidable masterpiece
This remarkable short novel has two interlinked levels: the relation fiction (art / writing) - reality and the `meaning / message' of a particular work of art, in our case `Foe'.

J.M. Coetzee uses the Robinson Crusoe story as well as the name of the author (Daniel Defoe, originally Foe) to delve deeply into the real nature of art and the real (hi)story of man (`the heart of man is a dark forest').
A work of fiction is part of reality. It is reality: `We [the novel and its characters] are all alive, part of the world.' But, if fiction (art) is part of the world, what is its function? `By art we have a means of giving voice', for instance to the speechless, who cannot tell the `real' story.
What is the truth in `Foe'? `Since we speak in figures', the truth is that slavers (the North) cut Friday's (the South's) tongue to make him speechless. The slavers continue, however, `to use words to subject their slaves to their will.' Friday underwent also a more atrocious mutilation: he is `unmanned'.
`Foe' states that `there are not two kinds of man, Englishman [pars pro toto] and savage.' Like for anyone else, Friday's desire is freedom: `How unnatural a lot is for any creature to be kept from its kind. Love perishes outside one's kind.' But, `as he is dumb we can tell ourselves his desires are dark to us.'
However, we must speak the unspoken, `we must give reckoning of ourselves to the world to hold our place.'
At the end, Friday's mouth is forced open and his message, `a slow stream, flows up to the end of the earth, like the roar of a seashell held to the ear.'

In `Foe', J.M. Coetzee dresses a sharp and clear mirror for artists and for the South.
He has written a work of genius, a formidable masterpiece.
... Read more

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Participating in the reframing of literary studies, Cosmopolitan Fictions identifies, as cosmopolitan fiction, a genre of global literature that investigates the ethics and politics of complex and multiple belonging.

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In this volume, Nashef looks at J.M. Coetzee's concern with universal suffering and the inevitable humiliation of the human being as manifest in his novels. Though several theorists have referred to the theme of human degradation in Coetzee’s work, no detailed study has been made of this area of concern especially with respect to how pervasive it is across Coetzee’s literary output to date. This study examines what J.M. Coetzee's novels portray as the circumstances that contribute to the humiliation of the individual--namely the abuse of language, master and slave interplay, aging and senseless waiting--and how these conditions can lead to the alienation and marginalization of the individual.

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This book is a consideration of various themes and techniques ranging across famous South African writer J. M. Coetzee's whole oeuvre. It aims to discover the "how" rather than "what" or "why": where does Coetzee's work derive its power? A discussion of themes, influences, and allegorical meanings tends to bleach out the experience of reading; and this experience is surely the only reason for choosing Coetzee's narratives over anyone else's. It examines the type of resistance to be found in his work, a resistance which seems to have little basis in a political belief or a rational philosophy of justice. The book also traces the effects of Coetzee's choice of point of view in each of his books--how it interacts with questions of complicity and impressions of realism, as well as how it relates to the subject matter and characters he is dealing with in each case. It is also an exploration of the place of the comic arts in Coetzee's work. This is a subject which has routinely been dismissed by critics who have failed to discern any humor in the novels. The contention is that a sense of the ridiculous and absurd is implicit in much of Coetzee's narrative prose and can be seen in the underlying structure of all his books. This study delves into his use of language and languages: the choice of tenses, the surprising flights of imagery to be found amidst the taut elegance of his narrative style; and also the multilingual sensibilities he shares with many of his characters, not excluding the non-verbal language of music. ... Read more

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With the publication of Age of Iron--winner of Britain's richest fiction prize, the Sunday Express Book of the Year for 1990--J. M. Coetzee is now recognized as one of the foremost writers of our day. In this timely study of Coetzee's fiction, Susan Gallagher places his work in the context of South African history and politics. Her close historical readings of Coetzee's six major novels explore how he lays bare the "dense complicity between thought and language" in South Africa.

Following a penetrating description of the unique difficulties facing writers under apartheid, Gallagher recounts how history, language, and authority have been used to marginalize the majority of South Africa's people. Her story reaches from the beginnings of Afrikaner nationalism to the recent past: the Sharpeville massacre, the jailing of Nelson Mandela, and the Soweto uprising.

As a result of his rejection of liberal and socialist realism, Coetzee has been branded an escapist, but Gallagher ably defends him from this charge. Her cogent, convincingly argued examination of his novels demonstrates that Coetzee's fictional response is "apocalyptic in the most profound Biblical sense, obscurely pointing toward ineffable realities transcending discursive definition." Viewing Coetzee's fiction in this context, Gallagher describes a new kind of novel "that arises out of history, but also rivals history." This analysis reveals Coetzee's novels to be profound responses to their time and place as well as richly rewarding investigations of the storyteller's art.