Sometimes heart-breaking, often funny, Summertime completes J.M.Coetzee’s majestic trilogy of fictionalised memoir, begun with Boyhood and Youth.

J.M. Coetzee’s (entirely fictional) English biographer gradually reveals an unflattering portrait of the young Coetzee as an awkward, bookish individual with little talent for opening himself to others. Within the family he’s regarded as an outsider, someone who tried to flee the tribe and has now returned, chastened. His insistence on doing manual work, his long hair and beard and (most damning) the rumours that he writes poetry - all evoke nothing but suspicion in the South Africa of the time.

Shortlisted
The Man Booker Prize 2009
Published by
Harvill Secker
Publication date
J.M. Coetzee

J.M. Coetzee

About the Author

J. M. Coetzee was born in Cape Town, South Africa. He is a multi-award-winning author, and was awarded the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature.
More about J.M. Coetzee

Other nominated books by J.M. Coetzee

The Schooldays of Jesus
Slow Man
Elizabeth Costello
Disgrace
Prize winner
Life & Times of Michael K
Prize winner