Summertime

Continuing Text's re-release of J. M. Coetzee's revered works with stylish new covers, Summertime is a modern classic by the great Nobel Prize winner accompanied by an introduction from literary critic James Ley.

And he was just a boy, this Mr Coetzee. I was a woman and he was a boy. He was a boy as a priest is always a boy until suddenly one day he is an old man.

After some time in America, the young unpublished writer John Coetzee returns to suburban Cape Town to live with his ailing father. His biographer chronicles this period in a series of interviews with the people important in Coetzee's life, constructing a portrait of an awkward literary man at a remove from those around him. Summertime is the last of J. M. Coetzee's masterly trio of autobiographical novels, Scenes from Provincial Life.

About the Author

John Maxwell "J. M." Coetzee is a South African novelist, essayist, linguist, translator and recipient of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature. He relocated to Australia in 2002 and lives in Adelaide.

He became an Australian citizen in 2006. In 2013, Richard Poplak of the Daily Maverick described Coetzee as "inarguably the most celebrated and decorated living English-language author".

Before receiving the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature, Coetzee was awarded the Jerusalem Prize, CNA Prize (thrice), the Prix Femina Étranger, The Irish Times International Fiction Prize and the Booker Prize (twice), among other accolades.