AustLit

'J.M. Coetzee has created a number of insulted or damaged characters in his novels. Through the prism of Spivak’s post-colonial theory, it is not difficult to find that the resistance and silence hidden behind these characters are highly compatible with Spivak’s discussion of the subaltern. Further analysis shows that Coetzee has endowed these silent subalterns with unusual significance: they are not only a silent declaration of existence, but also powerful agents to deconstruct the empire and resist cognitive violence. Significantly and illuminatingly, Coetzee uses literature to break the dictatorship of historical writing and to reproduce the richness and variety of marginalized cultures.'

Source: CAOD database.