Items related to Summertime: scenes from provincial life (Scenes from...
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.
Sometimes heartbreaking, often very funny, Summertime shows us a great writer as he limbers up for his task. It completes the majestic trilogy of fictionalised memoir begun with Boyhood and Youth.
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Review:
Coetzee has always been a writer with a cold eye and here he turns that eye on himself...there is something satisfying in the bleakness, in Coetzee's refusal to present the world other than it appears to him, and to subject his character to this cool, unforgiving analysis. (Allan Massie, The Scotsman)
Book Description:
A rich, funny, and deeply affecting autobiographical new novel from one of the world's greatest living writers.
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- PublisherHarvill Secker
- Publication date2009
- ISBN 10 1846553180
- ISBN 13 9781846553189
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages272
- Rating
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Summertime (Scenes from provincial life)
Published by
Harvill Secker
(2009)
ISBN 10: 1846553180
ISBN 13: 9781846553189
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Hardcover
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Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. Condition: BRAND NEW. GIFTABLE QUALITY. Synopsis: Summertime is an inventive and inspired work of fiction that allows J.M. Coetzee to imagine his own life with a critical and unsparing eye, revealing painful moral struggles and attempts to come to grips with what it means to care for another human being. A young English biographer is researching a book about the late South African writer John Coetzee, focusing on Coetzee in his thirties, at a time when he was living in a rundown cottage in the Cape Town suburbs with his widowed father - a time, the biographer is convinced, when Coetzee was finding himself as a writer. Never having met the man himself, the biographer interviews five people who knew Coetzee well, including a married woman with whom he had an affair, his cousin Margot, and a Brazilian dancer whose daughter took English lessons with him. These accounts add up to an image of an awkward, reserved, and bookish young man who finds it hard to make meaningful connections with the people around him. Summertime is an inventive and inspired work of fiction that allows J.M. Coetzee to imagine his own life with a critical and unsparing eye, revealing painful moral struggles and attempts to come to grips with what it means to care for another human being. Incisive, elegant, and often surprisingly funny, Summertime is a compelling work by one of today's most esteemed writers. Winner of the Nobel prize for literature. Seller Inventory # ABE-1644180995022
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Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Brand New. 272 pages. 8.74x5.67x1.02 inches. In Stock. Seller Inventory # zk1846553180
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Summertime
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Secker & Warburg, London, United Kingdom
(2009)
ISBN 10: 1846553180
ISBN 13: 9781846553189
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Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. Dust Jacket Condition: New. 1st Edition. First UK edition, First Print. A true first edition, first printing (first impression) with the number "1" to the copyright page to indicate a true first print. Unread and in collectors condition, Shortlisted for the 2009 MAN Booker Prize. Seller Inventory # 005077
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Summertime (Import)
Published by
Harvill Secker
(2009)
ISBN 10: 1846553180
ISBN 13: 9781846553189
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Book Description Condition: New. Buy with confidence! Book is in new, never-used condition. Seller Inventory # bk1846553180xvz189zvxnew
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Summertime: NEW SIGNED FIRST EDITION
Published by
Harvill Secker
(2009)
ISBN 10: 1846553180
ISBN 13: 9781846553189
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Hardcover
First Edition
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Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. Dust Jacket Condition: New. 1st Edition. A new first printing in a likewise unclipped dust wrapper. This unread gift condition copy is SIGNED by the author to the title page. Superb attributes for this elusive signature. BOXED DESPATCH. Signed by Author(s). Seller Inventory # ABE-14466331492
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