Boyhood

It is up to him to somehow get beyond childhood, beyond family and school, to a new life where he will not need to pretend any more.

A young John Coetzee struggles to exert his autonomy in this perceptive evocation of his early years in the deeply divided South Africa of the 1940s. Coetzee reflects on his formative experiences with brutal insight and clarity, laying bare the intermingled joys and tragedies of childhood against a backdrop of incongruous cruelty. Boyhood is the first of J. M. Coetzee’s masterly trio of autobiographical novels, Scenes from Provincial Life.


J. M. Coetzee was the first author to win the Booker Prize twice and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003. He lives in Adelaide.

‘Exceptional…a scorched tale of race, caste, shame, and—at times—hilarious bewilderment.’ New Yorker