The keynote for the International Conference, Writing for Liberty, held in Cape Town in 2017 is a response to the contradictory demands made on writers: to respond to the suffering in the world and to refrain from appropriating the pain of the marginalised. Taking a cue from Isaiah Berlin’s analysis of the two kinds of liberties: liberty to be free and liberty from interference with freedom, an argument is made for the freedom of a writer to write what she wants. This freedom is radically tempered in a reading of some novels by JM Coetzee. Here I explore the quality of skill, anguish and powerlessness to which a writer has to submit within the structure of her text.

中文翻译：

---

写自由

2017 年在开普敦举行的“为自由而写作”国际会议的主旨是回应对作家提出的矛盾要求：回应世界上的苦难，避免挪用边缘化者的痛苦。从以赛亚·伯林对两种自由的分析中得到启示：自由的自由和不受干扰的自由，有人论证了作家可以自由地写她想写的东西。这种自由在阅读 JM Coetzee 的一些小说时得到了彻底的锻炼。在这里，我探讨了作家在其文本结构中必须服从的技巧、痛苦和无能为力的品质。