Waiting for the Russians: Coetzee's <i>The Master of Petersburg</i> 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