The Bloomsbury Handbook to J. M. Coetzee

The Bloomsbury Handbook to J.M. Coetzee, to my mind, effects such a deepening in informative and often powerful ways. While of primary interest to the specialist, it will be a valuable point of reference for anyone who has been stirred by the reach and depth of Coetzee’s writing, and, who, like the boy David and his guardian Simón in the Schooldays of Jesus (2016), attempts to execute new steps and thereby learn to ‘dance the universe’. * Australian Book Review * This book offers an extraordinary and exciting array of information, ideas, insights, as well as assessments and unexpected contexts, about Coetzee’s life and works. Its comprehensiveness is really quite remarkable. The perceptive, thoughtful essays quickly challenged me into thinking afresh and anew—I found myself immediately propelled back to Coetzee’s books on my shelves and starting to reread them. Every admirer of Coetzee will want to have this book by their side. * Robert J.C. Young, Professor of English, New York University, USA * Like many innovative writers, J. M. Coetzee has always been wary of what he once called the critic’s ‘games handbook.’ Thankfully, The Bloomsbury Handbook to J. M. Coetzee heeds this caution. Assembling an impressive array of established and emergent critics, this welcome, even game-changing collection opens Coetzee’s astonishing oeuvre for a new generation of readers in myriad productive ways * Peter D. McDonald, Professor of English and Related Literature, University of Oxford, UK *