Youth

"Youth's" narrator, a student in 1950s South Africa, has long been plotting an escape from his native country. Studying mathematics, reading poetry, saving money, he tries to ensure that when he arrives in the real world, he will be prepared to experience life to its full intensity, and transform it into art. Arriving at last in London, however, he finds neither poetry nor romance. Instead, he succumbs to the monotony of life as a computer programmers, from which random, loveless affaires offer no relief. Devoid of inspiration, he stops writing and begins a dark pilgrimage in which he is continually tested and continually found wanting.

ISBN 0099433621   Pages 256 ISBN13 9780099433620 (What's this?)   Weight (grammes) 128 Publisher Vintage   Published in London Imprint Vintage   Height (mm) 199 Format Paperback   Width (mm) 132 Publication date 06 Feb 2003   Spine width (mm) 12 DEWEY 823   Academic level General DEWEY edition DC21

"One of the finest authors writing in the English language today." -- "The Times" "Brilliant as a period piece, Youth also constitutes a remarkable feat of self-destruction." -- "Sunday Times" "Youth shares with Hanif Kureshi's "Intimacy" and Graham Greene's The End of the Affair a rare combination of lived experience, expressed with eloquence, and a fierce uncompromising honesty. A masterpiece." -- "Harpers & Queen" "Coetzee is one of the greatest writers of our time." -- "Los Angeles Times" "Coetzee is able to dissect the human psyche with a surgeon's touch." -- "The Hamilton Spectator" Of the Booker Prize-winning "Disgrace": "The richness of Disgrace lies in the elegant and allegorical role reversals, the spare symbolism of the language and in the characterization. We may not like David Lurie, but in Coetzee's skillful hands we can't dismiss him without pity." -- "The Globe and Mail"

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