Boyhood (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: J. M. Coetzee
- First Published: 1997
- Type of Work: Autobiography
- Time of Work: post-World War II
- Setting: Worcester and Cape Town, South Africa
- Principal Characters: J. M. Coetzee, Mr. Coetzee, Mrs. Coetzee, Aunt Annie
- Genres: Nonfiction, Autobiography
- Subjects: Language or languages, Parents and children, Adolescence, Colonialism, Sex or sexuality, Self, Authors or writers, Prejudices or antipathies, Religion, Violence, South Africa or South Africans, Apartheid
- Locales: Cape Town, South Africa, Worcester, South Africa
In his Boyhood: Scenes from Provincial Life, J. M. Coetzee provides his readers with his own portrait of the artist as a young man. Like James Joyce, Coetzee depicts himself as a boy trying to find himself, to adjust to his society, to come to terms with his parents, and to lay the groundwork for his future career as a writer and an academic. The book focuses on Coetzee’s life from the age of ten to thirteen, formative years marked by an awakening sexuality, a love-hate relationship with his smothering mother, a fascination with literature, and a sense of his alienation and...
[The entire page is 2080 words long]
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