The Writing Business: "He and His Man", Coetzee and Defoe (J.M. Coetzee and Daniel Defoe) (Critical Essay)

Summary This article explores the complexities of mimesis in J.M. Coetzee's Nobel lecture, "He and His Man", discovering in the authorial doubling of Coetzee and Defoe, and of Defoe and Robinson Crusoe, a further doubling of mimesis without an original-which lies at the heart of what, in Coetzee's lecture, Robinson Crusoe calls "the writing business".