Boyhood

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 TimesJ.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.