Michael K: A novel

How is it that a character from literary fiction can so alter the landscapes he touches even as he – in his self-imposed isolation – seeks to avoid them? How is it that Michael K bewildered and bewildering can remain so fragile yet so present so imposing without attempting to be so? In this response to JM Coetzee’s classic masterpiece Life & Times of Michael K Nthikeng Mohlele dabbles in the artistic and speculative in a unique attempt to unpack the dazed and disconnected world of the title character his solitary ways his inventiveness but also to show how astutely Michael K holds up a mirror to those whose paths he inadvertently crosses. Michael K explores the weight of history and of conscience thus wrestling the character from the confines of literary creation to the frontiers of artistic timelessness and contemporary South Africa.