K only kom biography of michael

1983 novel by J.M. Coetzee

Life & Times of Michael K is a 1983 novel by South African-born writer J. M. Coetzee.

The novel won the Booker Prize for 1983. The novel is a story of a man named Michael K, who makes an arduous journey from Cape Town to his mother's rural birthplace, amid a fictitious civil war during the apartheid era, in the 1970-80s.

Plot summary

The novel is split into three parts.

The novel begins with Michael K, a poor man with a cleft lip who has spent his childhood in institutions and works as a gardener in Cape Town. Michael tends to his mother who works as a domestic servant to a wealthy family.

K only kom biography of michael

The country descends into civil war and martial law is imposed, and Michael's mother becomes very sick. Michael decides to quit his job and escape the city to return his mother to her birthplace, which she says was Prince Albert.

Michael finds himself unable to obtain the proper permits for travel out of the city so he b