In the Middle of Nowhere

Jonathan Crewe is the Leon Black Emeritus Professor of Shakespearean Studies at Dartmouth College. Born in South Africa, he received his undergraduate education at the University of Natal, and then completed his graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He has written numerous books and articles on early modern literature, including Shakespeare, and on South African writing.

• AcknowledgementsIntroduction Chapter 1: Arrival Chapter 2: Settling In Chapter 3: FlashbacksChapter 4: Boyhood Chapter 5: Disgrace Chapter 6: Master Classes: White Writing

Part-memoir, part-biography, part-criticism, Jonathan Crewe’s account of the provenance of J.M. Coetzee’s fiction is erudite and poignant. In the Middle of Nowhere is the story of a friendship, but one rooted in a shared background and situation. As young literary intellectuals at odds with colonial ‘English,’ both found wider horizons in the American academy, but without being able to put the past firmly behind them. The intimacy of Crewe’s account of the Nobel laureate’s intellectual biography makes it essential reading in Coetzee studies.