Age of Iron

by J. M. Coetzee (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1991

  $3.43

• Used

  Paperback
  1998

  $3.43

  An old woman is dying of cancer in Cape Town. A classics professor, Mrs Curren has always been opposed to the brutality of apartheid, but has lived insulated from its true horrors. Now she is suddenly forced to come to terms with the iron-hearted rage that the system has wrought. In an extended letter addressed to her daughter, who has long since fled to America, Mrs Curren recounts the strange events of her dying days. She witnesses the burning of a nearby black township; discovers the bullet-riddled body of her servant's son, and a teenage black activist hiding in her house is killed by security forces. And through it all, her only companion is a homeless man, an alcoholic who appears on her doorstep. J M Coetzee was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003.

• Used

  Hardcover
  1990

  $3.69

  Dying of cancer, Elizabeth Curren writes a testament to her lost daughter, now living in America. Her account describes her relationship with the tramp, Vercueil, who becomes her silent companion and confessor as she tries to make her peace with the world. The novel is an anguished lament for a country on the cusp of change and for all children lost to South Africa's age of iron.