In a small town in 1940s South Africa, a young boy is ill at ease with his father and stifled by his mother. He excels at school, but is wary of his fellow pupils. Later, as a student in Cape Town, he readies himself to escape to Europe, but once in London, the reality is dispiriting. Decades later, an English biographer researches a book about the late John Coetzee, and interviewees describe an awkward man dogged by rumours. For the first time, J. M. Coetzee's majestic trilogy of fictionalised memoir, BOYHOOD, YOUTH and SUMMERTIME, is available in one beautiful volume.

J.M. Coetzee¿s work includes Waiting for the Barbarians, Life & Times of Michael K, Boyhood, Youth, Disgrace, Summertime, The Childhood of Jesus and, most recently, The Schooldays of Jesus. He was the first author to win the Booker Prize twice and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2003.