Life and Times of Michael K

First published in 1983 and winner of the Booker Prize. Set in a turbulent South Africa, a young gardener decides to take his mother away from the violence towards a new life in the abandoned countryside, but finds that the war follows him wherever he goes. Life and Times of Michael K is the story of a man caught up in a war beyond his understanding, but determined to live his life, however minimally, on his own terms.