J.M. 쿳시의 장르 담론 —패러디 자서전으로 읽는 『서머타임』

J.M. Coetzee continues to interrogate and reflect on the conventions of autobiography in Summertime, much as he did in his earlier works, Boyhood and Youth. In Summertime, Coetzee intertwines “historical truth” with “poetic truth,” creating what he describes as “a fiction of the truth.” However, the structural format of Summertime represents a significant departure from his previous autobiographical works. Instead of a single third-person narrative perspective (he, John), the story unfolds through a multiplicity of third-person voices. This shift is deeply tied to Coetzee’s preoccupation with temporal distance and its role in self-examination. In Boyhood and Youth, the chronological gap allowed Coetzee to explore his earlier selves with a measure of detachment. By contrast, in Summertime, which spans the 1970s —when Coetzee began his career as a writer—and extends across his literary journey, the immediacy of the subject matter makes such distance elusive. Confronted with this challenge, Coetzee opts for a satirical and parodic approach, imagining a posthumous biography written by a stranger. This inventive narrative strategy serves as a critique and reinvention of the autobiographical form, raising provocative questions about the nature of self-representation and truth-telling. This study explores the implications of Coetzee’s approach, analyzing how Summertime redefines the boundaries between biography, autobiography, and fiction in its pursuit of truth.