Kannemeyer coetzee biography of alberta

Upon reading this book, I wanted to revisit all my reviews of Coetzee’s books on this forum and revise them in light of the new information I had received on his life.

But then I paused and let the record stand by following one of Coetzee’s maxims: let the book stand on its own merit, the writer does not have to explain it or his motivation for writing it.

This is a rather large but a very engrossing biography that I read from end to end, and annotated at length, of a colonial writer who came to writing by accident (he wanted to be a mathematician), shunned publicity although it followed him relentlessly, and won every award in the global literary hierarchy.

Coetzee is revealed as a recluse, rather cold and distant, whose personal life is marred by tragedy: his son killed mysteriously, his daughter reduced to a vegetated state due to multiple illnesses, his first wife dead prematurely of cancer, his father an alcoholic.

Growing up dur