At the banquet for his Nobel Prize for literature in 2003, J.M. Coetzee, author of Foe, mused about truth and authorship. He recalled the moment in his childhood where he realized that Robinson Crusoe was not, in fact, written by Robinson Crusoe. Then, rather than delivering the traditional lecture, Coetzee told a strange story in which he claimed to know Robinson Crusoe and presented the events that happened when Crusoe returned to England. In the video, you can see some befuddlement from the audience as they listen to Coetzee speak as if he were actually an associate of Crusoe’s. And throughout, he insists, like author Daniel Defoe (or James Frey), that these events are true.
At Broad Street, we care a lot about true stories being true. As we wrote in our opening issue: “Our definition of true is far narrower; we mean things that actually happened.” So what about this speech? Watch for yourself!
