Coetzee and Borges: the Southern Connections

  • Enrique Galvan-Alvarez Universidad Internacional de la Rioja
  • Fernando Galván Universidad de Alcalá

Abstract

This essay addresses some of the relations that can be traced between, on the one hand, J. M. Coetzee and Jorge Luis Borges and, on the other, the concept of the Global South and Coetzee’s recent approach to Latin America. The development of his ideas about the notion of the South or “real South,” as opposed to the “mythic South,” is discussed and illustrated through a brief analysis of Borges’s tale “El Sur” [“The South”] and Coetzee’s novel Disgrace. These two texts help us in focusing Coetzee’s rejection of the so-called “Northern Gaze,” a Westernised world-view dominated by the English language, and his preference for Spanish as the language for the initial publication of his latest books.

Author Biographies

Enrique Galvan-Alvarez, Universidad Internacional de la Rioja
Enrique Galvan-Alvarez is Senior Lecturer at the all-online Universidad Internacional de la Rioja (UNIR) and Research Affiliate at Oxford Brookes University (UK). His work is concerned with postcolonial and diaspora identity-making in a number of different literary and non-literary contexts.
Fernando Galván, Universidad de Alcalá
Fernando Galván is Professor of English at the University of Alcalá. He has written extensively on contemporary fiction and recently authored other essays on Coetzee and Borges.  

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Published
2023-06-29
How to Cite
Galvan-Alvarez, E., & Galván, F. (2023). Coetzee and Borges: the Southern Connections. Atlantis. Journal of the Spanish Association for Anglo-American Studies, 45(1), 74-92. https://doi.org/10.28914/Atlantis-2023-45.1.05
Section
Articles