A review by jonbot666
Foe by J.M. Coetzee

3.0

This is a retelling of the tale of Robinson Cursoe of which I am not incredibly familiar. For me it became solely about colonialism and how stories are stolen and retold in ways that are unrepresentative of the people it purports to speak for. History is merely “his story” which is one perspective. Colonialists having enjoyed a monopoly on information and history itself were able to weave whatever narratives they desired with little chance for any minority group to rebut. The lack of agency Africans in this work and the character’s assumption that they are unintelligent is representative of how colonialism views cultural differences upon invasion. Many cultures and peoples took decades and centuries to recoup. In the immediate aftermath, irrespective of ability, were thought unable to use their own voice; to be unworthy of telling a story, incapable of communication. This slight novella makes me want to read the source material and compare the telling of the tale of Cursoe to the dissection of its construction.