Photographs from Boyhood

Celebrated as one of the foremost writers of our time, JM Coetzee’s early ambition to become a photographer is less well known. But a collection of images that surfaced recently gives insight into Coetzee’s youthful encounters with photography.

Curated by Farzanah Badsha and Hermann Wittenberg, the collection demonstrates Coetzee’s creative development, within the world of the well-known memoir Boyhood.

Commenting on a preview of the exhibition in the Times Literary Supplement, Oliver Ready commented, “Perhaps most striking, and most Coetzeean, are the self-portraits in a mirror: with their mood of cool detachment, they suggest that Coetzee’s ability to estrange himself from himself relies on much more than just the passage of time.”

JM Coetzee – Photographs from Boyhood runs from 28 November 2017 to 20 January 2018 at the UCT Irma Stern Museum.