'fascinating'Tim Parks, London Review of Books'A study of manuscripts and notebooks may sound like a dry exercise in scholarship, but David Attwell's book is nothing of the sort. It is a fascinating, highly readable, and tremendously insightful account of the processes through which some of the greatest novels of our time came into being, and in telling this story Attwell shows in illuminating detail the inseparability of Coetzee's creative activity from the significant events of his life.'Derek Attridge, University of York'With exemplary care, clarity, and sensitivity David Attwell shows just how illuminating a literary biography can be. Unfailingly interesting and insightful, this invaluable work is, above all, a pleasure to read.'Zoë Wicomb'David Attwell's J.M. Coetzee and the Life of Writing sheds startling new light on the relentless process of making and remaking that has produced the 2003 Nobel Prize-winner's oeuvre. In a series of readings outstanding for their meticulousness, care and sensitivity, Attwell gives us a study of J.

M. Coetzee in time, yet also, ultimately, beyond time, confirmed in his position as one of the great writers of the late twentieth century. Charting Attwell'sencounter with the remarkable Coetzee archive in Austin, Texas, the book is marked throughout by Attwell's palpable passion for Coetzee's writing, and evident love of the birth-land he shares with hissubject. With this book our understanding of this writer's life's work, as well as of the work of a life, especially, but not only, that of Coetzee, is transformed.'Elleke Boehmer, Professor of World Literature in English, University of Oxford.