Waiting for the Russians: Coetzee's The Master of Petersburg and the Logic of Late Postcolonialism

Abstract

JM Coetzee's 1994 novel The Master of Petersburg has puzzled its readership with
its geopolitical and temporal distance from the South African scene. I argue that the
novel actually portrays some of the more salient features of the transition years, as
it reflects on the position of the writer vis-à-vis a restructured field of political forces. A meditation on transition time and on the protracted dimension of waiting for a new world to be born, the novel also presents a model of connectivity between Russia and South Africa. It places post-apartheid culture in a special relationship to postcolonialism and the global configuration born at the end of the Cold War.

Current Writing Vol. 19 (1) 2007: pp. 1-20