過去十來年，評論家在閱讀柯慈的文本時，開始注意到倫理閱讀的轉向。此一倫理的轉向摒棄以往著重歷史和政治的閱讀，後者大幅度地限制了柯慈作品所蘊含的潛能。柯慈的倫理書寫在於首先他拒絕接受文學被制度化以及衍生而來加諸於文學寫作上的限制；拋棄這些限制之後，書寫的倫理即是不斷地回應他者的問題。柯慈的極限書寫不僅鬆動了語言的界線和文學傳統框架，更加超越了本體知識論定義下的文學本質，從而挑戰讀者重新思索文學。柯慈的小說關注諸多倫理議題，包括悅納異己、對他者的責任、原諒、動物權、記憶以及獨一性等。這些倫理的關懷挑戰僵化的道德和政治論述，讓我們再次思考文學如何回應他者的要求。在這篇論文中，我將引藉德希達論述文學的概念來討論柯慈寫作中文學做為一種事件。德希達將文學書寫視為一種「不負（擔）責任的責任，拒絕將思想或是書寫回覆於結構性的權力」。柯慈（重新）塑造的二個作家─《聖彼得堡的文豪》中的杜斯妥也夫斯基和《伊莉莎白‧卡斯特洛》中的伊莉莎白‧卡斯特洛，而德希達的文學概念幫助我們檢視柯慈寫作中的文學事件和作者書寫的倫理意涵。在本文的第一部份，我將探討有關柯慈的評論中倫理的轉向。在第二部份我將討論柯慈作品中的文學事件。文學事件是一種展演，能夠瓦解根深蒂固的道德和文化論述；文學同時是一種對未知他者的倫理回應。這部份的討論將著重在《聖彼得堡的文豪》中的最後一個章節〈斯塔夫羅金〉。在第三部份，我將分析《伊莉莎白‧卡斯特洛》中書寫的責任。責任這個概念不能被猍義地定義成職責；責任是對他者的承諾，接納他者。

Within the past decade or so, there has been an ethical turn in the criticism of J. M. Coetzee’s writing, a critical turn beyond the historical and political reading that has greatly constrained the potentiality of Coetzee’s works. This ethical turn is embodied in Coetzee’s resistance to the institutional demand on literature and his commitment to the responsibility for the other in his writing. Coetzee’s writing at the limit not only displaces the linguistic boundaries and literary conventions, but also exceeds the onto- epistemological totality of literature, thus challenging readers to rethink literature. The constellation of the various ethical issues in Coetzee’s writing—hospitality and responsibility toward the other, forgiveness, animal rights, memory, and singularity— disrupts the rigidified moral and political discourses and demands that readers explore what promise literature holds on the question of the other. In this article, I will investigate the literary event in Coetzee’s writing and writer’s responsibility in his (re)invention of the writer-figures of Dostoevsky in The Master of Petersburg (1994) and Elizabeth Costello in the eponymous novel Elizabeth Costello (2003), through Jacques Derrida’s understanding of literature as a “duty of irresponsibility, of refusing to reply for one’s thought or writing to constituted powers.” In Part I, I will look into the ethical turn in the scholarship on Coetzee. In Part II, I will turn to the discussion of the literary event that comes as both a performative act that disrupts the grounds of fixed moral and cultural assumptions and a response toward the unknown other by reading The Master of Petersburg, with the focus on its last chapter “Stavrogin.” In Part III, I will examine Coetzee’s act of responsibility in Elizabeth Costello. If responsibility means anything other than the parochial understanding of duties and obligations, it is the promise to and welcome of the other.