Writing Photographs Ethically: Strategies of Ekphrasis in J.M. Coetzee's Prose.

In the novels Elizabeth Costello, Slow Man, and Life & Times of Michael K, J.M. Coetzee fashions an ethical mode of "writing photographs" rather than "writing about photographs" via the technique of ekphrasis to recreate in prose several vivid and often unsettling images. Through ekphrasis, the reader becomes what Liliane Louvel terms a "reader/viewer" and is drawn into a palimpsestic encounter in which the image activates collective knowledge and experiences of visual media. The use of ekphrasis comes with unique ethical imperatives. Close analysis enables an exploration into the strategies of writing, such as foregrounding what is unseen, that Coetzee employs to respond to such concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]