Scenes from Provincial Life brings together, in one volume, J.M. Coetzee`s majestic trilogy of fictionalised memoir, Boyhood, Youth & Summertime It opens in a small town in the South Africa of the 1940s. We meet a young boy who, at home, is ill at ease with his father & stifled by his mother`s unconditional love. At school he passes every test that is set for him, but he remains wary of his fellow pupils. Later, as a student of mathematics in Cape Town he prepares to escape to Europe & turn himself into an artist. Once in London, however, the reality is dispiriting. Decades on, an English biographer researches a book about the late writer, John Coetzee. As he interviews important figures in Coetzee`s life, a portrait emerges of an awkward outsider who
- even after death
- remains dogged by rumours.