Krog, Antjie2018-04-182018-04-182018Krog, A. (2018) To Write Liberty. Current Writing: Text and Reception in Southern Africa, 30(1): 77-84.2159-9130https://hdl.handle.net/10566/3594http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1013929X.2018.1439868The 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.enThis is the author-version of the article published online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1013929X.2018.1439868KrogLiteratureLibertyPolitical correctnessCoetzeeArticle