DUSKLANDS

First Edition 1974; Ravan Press, Johannesburg. Octavo, 22.5 x 15.5cm; 134pp. Sage green cloth boards with gilt titles to spine. Pictorial dust jacket.

Author and literary critic J.M. Coetzee was born in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1940. He published his first novel, Dusklands, in 1974. In 1984, Coetzee won the Booker Prize for The Life & Times of Michael K. He also published three autobiographical works, Boyhood (1997), Youth (2000) and Summertime (2009). Coetzee won his second Booker Prize in 1999 for Disgrace. In 2003, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. His more recent works include the 2013 novel The Childhood of Jesus.

Dusklands is a presentation and critique of the violence inherent in the colonialist and imperialist mentality of the Western world. The novel consists of two separate stories. The first , "The Vietnam Project", relates the gradual descent into insanity of its protagonist Eugene Dawn. Eugene works for a U.S. government agency responsible for the psychological warfare in the Vietnam War. The second story, "The Narrative of Jacobus Coetzee", which takes place in the 18th century, is an account of a hunting expedition into the then "unexplored" interior of South Africa. After crossing the Orange River, Jacobus meets with a Namaqua tribe to trade, but suddenly falls ill. He is attended to by the tribe and gradually recovers, only to get into a fight for which he is expelled from the village.

Condition: Boards are foxed at upper ends. Dust jacket has a tiny teat to top front edge. Very Good.