As an intellectual figure in South Africa, J. M. Coetzee has consistently engaged with the politics of the past, particularly the contemporary ethical ramifications of the colonial past, alongside the more recent and bitter history of oppression under apartheid. As archaeologists, we aim to excavate these engagements through his novels and essays, particularly his long-standing concerns with the Khoekhoe communities of the Cape. In South Africa today, the tensions between remembering and forgetting are palpable and, in the aftermath of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), we suggest that not all forgetting can be cast as therapeutic. Throughout his complex relationships with the nation's history, Coetzee foregrounds the colonial past and reiterates the ethical responsibilities of remembering so that the patterns of the past are not repeated.