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RESUMO DE ARTIGO - XV ENCONTRO ABRALIC
APORIAS, UTOPIAS E A LUTA PELA DIGNIDADE: O MIGRANTE NO THE CHILDHOOD OF JESUS DE J.M. COETZEE
MARIA PAOLA GUARDUCCI
J.M. Coetzee’s novels often scrutinize the relationship between individuals and territory in terms of reciprocal refusal / longing / belonging. None of the protagonists of his novels could be properly understood without the analysis of his/her ties with the land, a relationship which, in South Africa, has always been and still is heavily loaded due to the peculiar history of the country. Even though the migrant is not new in Coetzee’s oeuvre, Michael K in Life and Times of Michael K being one of the most poignant examples, his last novel, The Childhood of Jesus (2013), directly deals with the topic. The story is set in a fictional country where migrants coming from different places are relocated according to strict rules. Novilla, the Spanish-speaking refugee camp where everything is codified through a severe rationalism, promotes a lifestyle based on the erasure of memory and emotions. It also advocates for material poverty, that is chastity, a frugal diet and strict obedience to a set of incomprehensible rules. According to its architects, this should be a dignified life that, on the contrary, is strongly rejected by Simón, one of the protagonist of the novel, who firmly believes it is desire that characterizes humankind and therefore struggles, through words and acts, to defend what he believes is his right to be human. The figure of Jesus Christ, openly evoked in the title but missing throughout the text, suggests a secular reading of Christian key-concepts shaped, in time, around Christ’s material poverty on the one hand and his spiritual richness on the other. In The Childhood of Jesus Coetzee rewrites the myth of the Holy Family as migrants devoid of all possession and on the run from their many enemies and he also engages with other topoi of Christianity such as poverty, the welcoming of poor people and the sacredness of the poor. The aim of my paper is to address these issues. Preliminary Bibliography Attridge, D., J. M. Coetzee and the ethics of reading, Chicago UP, 2004 Galston, W.A. e Hoffenberg P.H. (eds.), Poverty and Morality: Religious and Secular Perspectives, Cambridge UP, 2010 Magli, I., Gesù di Nazareth, Milano, Rizzoli, 1987. Marais, M. Secretary of the invisible: the idea of hospitality in the fiction of J. M. Coetzee, Rodopi, Amsterdam, 2009
Palavras-chave: MIGRATION, COETZEE, IDENTITY, POVERTY
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