Lele Li
School of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Lanzhou University, Gansu 730000, Lanzhou, China.
*Corresponding author: Lele Li
Abstract
Published in 2013, The Childhood of Jesus is the first installment in South African Nobel laureate John Maxwell Coetzee’s acclaimed Jesus Trilogy, alongside The School Days of Jesus (2016) and The Death of Jesus (2020). Since the 1980s, international academia has explored Coetzee’s literary legacy. This paper examines the protagonists’ experiences in a foreign land through Henri Lefebvre’s spatial theory. By analyzing the construction of three spatial dimensions—material, social, and spiritual—the paper reveals how J.M. Coetzee’s narrative weaves together overlapping spaces to depict refugee communities in their sanctuary. Through this exploration, it uncovers the harsh realities beneath the “utopian” facade, conveying the author’s profound reflections on refugee issues in the globalized era. With considerable insight and broad vision, Coetzee voices for marginalized urban groups in the globalized era, highlighting the latent value orientation of postmodern refugee narratives and carrying urgent real-world significance against the backdrop of global dispersion.
References
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How to cite this paper
Dystopia Writing in The Childhood of Jesus from the Perspective of Space Theory
How to cite this paper: Lele Li. (2025) Dystopia Writing in The Childhood of Jesus from the Perspective of Space Theory. Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Science, 9(9), 1800-1805.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/jhass.2025.09.017