Youth (book)
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Youth (or Youth: Scenes from Provincial Life II) (2002) is a semi-fictionalised autobiographical book by J. M. Coetzee, recounting his struggles in 1960s London after fleeing the political unrest of Cape Town. After graduating in mathematics and English, he moves in the hope of finding inspiration of becoming a poet and finding the woman of his dreams. However he finds none of this and instead, takes up a tedious job as a computer programmer. He feels alienated from the natives and never settles down, always aware of the scorn they see him with. He engages in a series of affairs, none of them fulfilling to him in the slightest. He scorns people's inabilities to see through his dull exterior into the 'flame' inside him; none of the women he meets evokes in him the passion that, accordingly to him, allows his artistry to flourish and thus produce great poetry.
| John Maxwell Coetzee |
|---|
| Novels |
| Dusklands (1974) • In the Heart of the Country (1977) • Waiting for the Barbarians (1980) • Life & Times of Michael K (1983) • Foe (1986) • Age of Iron (1990) • The Master of Petersburg (1994) • Disgrace (1999) • Elizabeth Costello (2003) • Slow Man (2005) • Diary of a Bad Year (2007) |
| Essays |
| White Writing: On the Culture of Letters in South Africa (1988) • Doubling the Point: Essays and Interviews (1992) • Giving Offense: Essays on Censorship (1996) • The Lives of Animals (1999) • Stranger Shores: Literary Essays, 1986–1999 (2001) |
| Autobiographical works |
| Boyhood: Scenes from Provincial Life (1997) • Youth: Scenes from Provincial Life II (2002) |
