Ransom Center Magazine

South Africa

The computer poetry of J. M. Coetzee’s early programming career

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Writer J. M. Coetzee’s early poetry is almost undecipherable. That’s because it was written in computer code.

Coetzee’s global reputation rests on his literary output, for which he received a Nobel Prize in 2003. Before he embarked on a career as a scholar and writer, the South African–born writer was a computer programmer in the early years of the industry’s development (1962–1965). I believe that this experience, while short, was vital for the development of Coetzee’s writerly project. While visiting the Ransom Center on a research fellowship, I examined Coetzee’s papers, which offer tantalizing clues about his neglected “other career.” [Read more…] about The computer poetry of J. M. Coetzee’s early programming career

Video: Fellow discusses role of white South African writing in the human rights struggles in South Africa

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Gareth Griffiths is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Western Australia and a Professorial Fellow at the University of Wollongong. He came to the Ransom Center to begin researching the South African writer Stephen Gray’s archive. Griffiths wanted to examine “the role of white South African writing in the human rights struggles in South Africa.” [Read more…] about Video: Fellow discusses role of white South African writing in the human rights struggles in South Africa

Research at the Ransom Center: “To Cape Town and back, via Mongolia”

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A portrait of J. M. Coetzee taken during his visit to The University of Texas at Austin in May 2010. Photo by Marsha Miller.
A portrait of J. M. Coetzee taken during his visit to The University of Texas at Austin in May 2010. Photo by Marsha Miller.

Perhaps one of the most distinctive features of J. M. Coetzee’s 1981 novel Waiting for the Barbarians is the setting—an imaginary empire, one lacking a specified place and time. Yet, when Coetzee penned the first draft of the novel, it was set in Cape Town, South Africa.

David Attwell, a Professor of English at the University of York in the U.K., provides an in-depth look at the development of Coetzee’s third novel. He visited the Ransom Center this year to explore Coetzee’s archive.

Coetzee, who was born in Cape Town and graduated from the University of Cape Town, enrolled in The University of Texas at Austin in 1965 to pursue his Ph.D. in English, linguistics, and Germanic languages.