Life & times of Michael K

Alternate Titles

• Life and times of Michael K.

Description

In a South Africa torn by civil war, Michael K sets out to take his mother back to her rural home. On the way there she dies, leaving him alone in an anarchic world of brutal roving armies. Imprisoned, Michael is unable to bear confinement and escapes, determined to live with dignity. Life and Times of Michael K goes to the centre of human experience -- the need for an interior, spiritual life, for some connections to the world in which we live, and for purity of vision.

Description

From the author of Waiting for the Barbarians, another startling and disturbing portrait of today's South Africa, a land and a people beset by violence and siege. Coetzee here tells the story of a handicapped young man who has worked as a municipal gardener in Cape Town. His mother is dying, and she wishes to return to her birthplace out in the veldt. Without the required transit passes, mother and son set out on a journey that will end in death for her and in a new but temporary life on an abandoned farm for him. His respite in isolation and peace does not last long, however; grotesque reality soon returns to trouble this quiet new world. Against the solitude of this private drama, Coetzee paints an eloquent and pained picture of his homeland and of the bureaucrats, doctors, army deserters, and camp guards who reveal the stress and qualms of their existence and who uneasily sense that there is no conclusion to their troubles and no future for their lives.

Subjects

Other Editions

• Life & times of Michael KPenguin Books1985-01-01
• Life & times of Michael KSecker & Warburg1983-01-01
• Life & times of Michael KJ. Curley1983-01-01
• Life and times of Michael K.Viking Press1984-01-01
• Michael K, Sa Vie, Son TempsHardcoverEditions Du Seuil1992-05-01
• Life & Times of Michael KLibrary BindingTandem Library1995-02-01