The writer’s inadequate response: Elizabeth Costello and the influence of Kafka and Hofmannsthal

Abstract

This article examines the impact of two authors who wrote in German, Franz Kafka and Hugo von Hofmannsthal, on the work of J. M. Coetzee. Focusing on Elizabeth Costello, the author explores the ways Kafka’s Vor dem Gesetz and Hofmannsthal’s Ein Brief are deployed within this novel as part of the intertextual fabric of the titular character’s persecuted imagination. Finding herself unwittingly caught in the imaginary worlds suggested by her European literary influences, Costello faces the problem of accounting for herself as a writer. Investigating questions of otherness, violence and authority, this article argues that Coetzee’s work reflects the struggles of a writer in the context of settler colonialism.