Serious Fiction explores the novels of J.M. Coetzee, in dialogue with key works of the European literary tradition and several contemporary masterworks of world literature, in order to flesh out an ethico-aesthetic ideal for the contemporary novel. -Serious- refers back to the Aristotelian definition of tragedy to revive a certain communal, political-ethical task of the artwork; -fiction, - also referring back to Aristotle and the subsequent poetic tradition, stresses the element of play in the artwork in contrast to the seriousness of the world of daily survival, business, and...