J.M. Coetzee's first body of criticism is a collection of seven essays focussed around the place of the white writer in South Africa. Surveying a broad swathe of authors including William Burchell, Thomas Pringle, WEG Louw, WC Scully, Roy Campbell, Pauline Smith, Mikro, Alan Paton, and Gertrude Millin, Coetzee examines how European travellers have thought about, and represented, the South African landscape. In this collection, Coetzee incisively articulates the racial concerns of a problematic (post)colonial literature.