Research ArticleArticles
“Living the Only Story I Admit”
Truth of Being and the Confessional Spiral in J. M. Coetzee’s Autobiographical Trilogy
Xiubing Yu
Contemporary Literature, June 2026, 67 (1) 123-150; DOI: https://doi.org/10.3368/cl.67.1.123
Xiubing Yu
Peking University, Beijing

Works Cited
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- Arendt, Hannah
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- Attridge, Derek
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- Attwell, David
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- Augustine, Saint
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- Cary, Phillip
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- Clarkson, Carrol
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- Coetzee, J. M.
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- Coetzee, J. M.
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- Coetzee, J. M.
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- Coetzee, J. M.
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- Coetzee, J. M.
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- Coetzee, J. M.
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- Coetzee, J. M.
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- Coetzee, J. M.
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- Coetzee, J. M.
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- Coetzee, J. M.
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- Coetzee, J. M.
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- Coetzee, J. M.
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- Collingwood-Whittick, Sheila
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- Docherty, Thomas
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- Effe, Alexandra
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- Jaidka, Manju
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- Kierkegaard, Søren
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- Klopper, Dirk
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- Kossew, Sue
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- Lejeune, Philippe
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- Lenta, Margaret
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- Macaskill, Brian
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- Marion, Jean-Luc
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- Pascal, Roy
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- Sevry, Jean
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- Tegla, Emanuela
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- Yeoh, Gilbert
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- Zwerdling, Alex
In this issue
Contemporary Literature
Vol. 67, Issue 1
1 Jun 2026
“Living the Only Story I Admit”
Xiubing Yu
Contemporary Literature Jun 2026, 67 (1) 123-150; DOI: 10.3368/cl.67.1.123
Jump to section
- Article
- Double Thoughts and the Triune Problem of Secular Confession
- Three Imperatives for Secular Confessional Writing
- Essential Truth as “Truth of Being”: From Augustine and Rousseau to Coetzee
- Augustine’s Confessions: Centering the “Sinner” Rather than the Plural “Sins”
- Rousseau: Shift from “Sinner” to “Sins”
- Coetzee: “Truth of Being a Writing Self”
- The Confessional Spiral at the Level of Content
- The External Cut: Faith in Writing, the Enactment of Living-as-Writing, the Undeniable Authority of the Painful Body
- The Truth of Being a Writing Self: Living the Only Story I Admit
- Conclusion
- Footnotes
- Works Cited
- Info & Metrics
- References
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