'Ceridwen Dovey’s new estimation of J.M. Coetzee is a personal account. It reflects on the influence of Coetzee’s writings on Dovey’s own work, as well as her mother, Teresa Dovey. The latter is the author of the first critical study of Coetzee’s novels, The Novels of J.M. Coetzee: Lacanian Allegories (1988).' (Introduction)