Life and Times of Michael K (Masterplots II: British and Commonwealth Fiction Series)
At a glance:
- Author: J. M. Coetzee
- First Published: 1983
- Type of Work: Allegorical realism
- Time of Work: The 1980’s
- Setting: Cape Town, South Africa, and the adjacent countryside
- Principal Characters: Michael K, Anna K, A Doctor
- Genres: Long fiction, Social realism, Political fiction
- Subjects: Politics, Revolutions, 1980’s, Farms, farmers, or farming, Survivalism, Government, Military life or service, South Africa or South Africans, Civil wars, Apartheid
- Locales: South Africa, Cape Town, South Africa
The Novel
Narrated mostly from the third-person point of view of Michael K, the novel begins with a summary of his bleak, uneventful life and family history. Michael is the third surviving child (all by different fathers, long gone) of Anna K, a Cape Town scrubwoman and domestic servant, herself the product of itinerant farm workers, including an alcoholic father. Michael is born with a harelip, which would be easily corrected by an operation, but no one ever bothers. Slow-witted, teased by other children, Michael grows up lonely and unschooled until his mother enters him in...
[The entire page is 1791 words long]
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