JM Coetzee. A Life in Writing

(Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 2012) 9781868424955. English translation by Michiel Heyns. 8vo; original purple boards, lettered in white on spine; laminated pictorial dustwrapper; pp. 710, incl. index; plates; ribbon markers. Fine condition. "This biography of JM Coetzee is the first to be written with the co-operation of Coetzee himself. With access to the writer, JC Kannemeyer was able to establish hitherto unsuspected connections between the writer's life and work. ... Kannemeyer candidly but sensitively describes Coetzee's relations with this parents, his wife and children, his colleagues and publishers. His account reveals the joy and also the sorrow that marked some of these relationships and how he was able to incorporate these experiences into situations, figures or motifs in his novels. ... After Kannemeyer it will not be possible to read Coetzee without an awareness of the deeply personal history and the social and political circumstances from which Coetzee's work has emerged." .