Summertime

by J.M. Coetzee
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A rich, funny, and deeply affecting autobiographical novel from one of the world's greatest living writers.

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Synopsis

A young English biographer is working on a book about the late writer, John Coetzee. He plans to focus on the years from 1972–1977 when Coetzee, in his thirties, is sharing a run-down cottage in the suburbs of Cape Town with his widowed father. This, the biographer senses, is the period when he was 'finding his feet as a writer'.Never having met Coetzee, he embarks on a series of interviews with people who were important to him – a married woman with whom he had an affair, his favourite cousin Margot, a Brazilian dancer whose daughter had English lessons with him, former friends and colleagues. From their testimony emerges a portrait of the young Coetzee as an awkward, bookish individual with little talent for opening himself to others. Within the family he is 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, rumours that he writes poetry evoke nothing but suspicion in the South Africa of the time.

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May 19

J.M. Coetzee Set To Be Knighted

by Random House Australia on 19 May 2010

J.M. Coetzee Set To Be Knighted 0 comments

Author of SUMMERTIME, J.M. Coetzee, is set to be knighted in The Order of the Dutch Lion.

Aug 23

2011 Queensland Premier's Literary Awards

by Random House Australia on 23 August 2011

2011 Queensland Premier's Literary Awards 0 comments

Over 50 authors included in this year’s shortlist

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