Abstract
The 2019 novel by the South African-Australian Nobel laureate, J M Coetzee, The Death of Jesus, is a third book in a sequence that includes Jesus in its title; like its predecessors it follows the lives of a recently constructed family in the dystopian Spanish-speaking towns of Novilla and Estrella. The surreal trilogy, which began with The Childhood of Jesus (2013), and then The Schooldays of Jesus (2016), presents us with unreal worlds, leaving us searching for meaning. This fable-like fantasy, which expands the author’s ‘late style’, challenges the genre of fiction itself. Typical of late style, the trilogy resists closure and resolution. The debated ideas are generated by characters who were forced to forsake their memories and histories. Even though the protagonists begin to embody the very ideas they debate, answers are not forthcoming.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
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Notes on contributors
Hania A. M. Nashef
Hania A M Nashef is a professor in the Department of Mass Communication at the American University of Sharjah, UAE. Her publications include The Politics of Humiliation in the Novels of J M Coetzee (2009) and Palestinian Culture and the Nakba: Bearing Witness (2019).