In recent years, the Nobel Prize for Literature has been awarded to authors who veer from the ludicrous to the obscure. The world was stunned when Bob Dylan, who told us “the answer is blowin’ in the wind”, did not even acknowledge his award in 2016 for two weeks. J.M. Coetzee, a South African who now lives in Adelaide, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003. Among his recent books, which verge on the incomprehensible, is The Childhood of Jesus (Text, Melbourne, 2013). …
