Youth

Continuing Text's re-release of J. M. Coetzee's revered works with stylish new covers, Youth is a modern classic by the great Nobel Prize winner accompanied by an introduction from bestselling author Michael McGirr.

He has escaped South Africa. Everything is going well, he has attained his first goal, he ought to be happy. In fact, as the weeks pass, he finds himself more and more miserable.

In this unforgiving portrait of the artist as a young man, John flees his apartheid-riven homeland for the bleak London of the early 1960s, where he aspires to become a writer. There he becomes trapped in stultifying computer-programming work and brief, unsatisfying affairs, turning ever inwards in the struggle to realise his ambitions. Youth is the second 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.