Life and Times of Michael K

A Novel

Look inside
$16.00 US
Penguin Adult HC/TR | Penguin Books
96 per carton
On sale Jan 08, 1985 | 978-0-14-007448-2
Sales rights: US, Opn Mkt (no CAN)
From author of Waiting for the Barbarians and Nobel Prize winner J.M. Coetzee. 

J.M. Coetzee's latest novel, The Schooldays of Jesus, is now available from Viking. Late Essays: 2006-2016 will be available January 2018. 


In a South Africa turned by war, Michael K. sets out to take his ailing 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. This life affirming novel goes to the center 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.
  • WINNER
    Man Booker Prize for Fiction
  • WINNER
    Nobel Prize in Literature
"An outstanding achievment." —Nadine Gordimer

"A major work of crystalline intensity." —Los Angeles Times

"So purifying to the senses that one comes away feeling that one's eye has been sharpened, one's hearing vivified." —The New York Times Book Review

About

From author of Waiting for the Barbarians and Nobel Prize winner J.M. Coetzee. 

J.M. Coetzee's latest novel, The Schooldays of Jesus, is now available from Viking. Late Essays: 2006-2016 will be available January 2018. 


In a South Africa turned by war, Michael K. sets out to take his ailing 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. This life affirming novel goes to the center 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.

Awards

  • WINNER
    Man Booker Prize for Fiction
  • WINNER
    Nobel Prize in Literature

Praise

"An outstanding achievment." —Nadine Gordimer

"A major work of crystalline intensity." —Los Angeles Times

"So purifying to the senses that one comes away feeling that one's eye has been sharpened, one's hearing vivified." —The New York Times Book Review