El autor muestra la influencia de Samuel Beckett en la obra del escritor sudafricano. Analiza las dos primeras novelas de J.M. Coetzee, Dusklands (1974) y In the Hearth of the Country (1977), para explicar cómo sus protagonistas comparten el solipsismo de los personajes becketianos; sin embargo, su destino cambia bajo la lógica del Colonialismo. A partir de este grado cero de la escritura, los personajes del novelista sudafricano inician un viaje que, en términos filosóficos, va de la parodia del ego cartesiano hacia el horizonte de reconocimiento hegeliano.
The author shows the influence of Samuel Beckett’s work in the oeuvre of the South African writer. He analyzes the first two novels of J. M. Coetzee, Dusklands (1974) and In the Hearth of the Country (1977) in order to explain how their protagonists share the solipsism of Beckett’s characters; however, their fate changes under the logic of colonialism. From this zero degree of writing, the characters of the South African novelist begin a journey that, in philosophical terms, takes them from the Cartesian ego towards the horizon of Hegelian recognition.