타자를 환대하기—쿳시의 ‘글쓰기’

One of the most prominent characteristics of J.M. Coetzee's novels is that there are many characters who perform the writing act in the novels like J.M. Coetzee himself. These characters are both same and different with the real author. As a kind of spokesperson, sometimes they represent the opinion of J.M. Coetzee and sometimes show differences with it. In this kind of confessional way of writing, J.M. Coetzee represented his own limit as a white writer in South Africa with the help of these characters. Especially, Slow Man is the novel about failure of an author to transform her raw writing materials in his imagination into a real work of fiction. While Coetzee's concern with hospitality is evident from his earlier novels in his extensive use, he expands the concept of hospitality into authorship more specifically in Slow Man. According to Derrida, unconditional hospitality is distinguished by responsiveness to otherness and denotes receiving difference of others “before any determination, before any anticipation, before any identification.” Likewise, an author should open up to visit of character involuntarily as inspiration comes to her. In terms of the metaphor of hospitality, a writer could be described as both a host and a hostage to an unknown character and unknowable readers of the future. Eventually, Elizabeth Costello who is writing a novel as both a character and an author in Slow Man is representation of J.M. Coetzee himself.