 First edition | |
| Author | J. M. Coetzee |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Autobiographical novel |
| Published | 2002 (Secker and Warburg) |
| Publication place | South Africa |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| Pages | 176 p. |
| ISBN | 0-14-200200-3 |
| OCLC | 53341007 |
| Preceded by | Boyhood |
| Followed by | Summertime |
Youth (orYouth: Scenes from Provincial Life II) (2002) is a semi-fictionalised autobiographical novel byJ. M. Coetzee, recounting his struggles in 1960sLondon after fleeing the political unrest ofCape Town. The book was republished as a paperback, simply titledYouth, in 2003 byVintage Books.[1]
The story begins with the narrator living inMowbray and studying at theUniversity of Cape Town. After graduating inmathematics andEnglish and in the wake of theSharpeville massacre he moves to London 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 computerprogrammer working forIBM his work including checkingpunched cards submitted to anIBM 7090 for theTSR-2 project . He seeks refuge in theThird Programme and cinema, falling in love withMonica Vitti. 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, according to him, would allow his artistry to flourish and thus produce great poetry. By the end of the book he is working forInternational Computers on theAtlas project.
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