Boyhood: Scenes from Provincial Life

Fiercely revealing, bluntly unsentimental…a telling portrait of the artist as a young man that illuminates the hidden source of his art. -Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

J.M. Coetzee’s latest novel, The Schooldays of Jesus, is now available from Viking. Late Essays: 2006-2016 will be available January 2018.

Coetzee grew up in a new development north of Cape Town, tormented by guilt and fear. With a father he despised, and a mother he both adored and resented, he led a double life-the brilliant and well-behaved student at school, the princely despot at home, always terrified of losing his mother’s love. His first encounters with literature, the awakenings of sexual desire, and a growing awareness of apartheid left him with baffling questions; and only in his love of the high veld ( farms are places of freedom, of life ) could he find a sense of belonging. Bold and telling, this masterly evocation of a young boy’s life is the book Coetzee’s many admirers have been waiting for, but never could have expected.