Age of Iron was published in 1990 and is the sixth novel written by South African author J. M. Coetzee. It was an international critical success, and although it didn't receive any of the prestigious literary awards that some of his other novels did, it nonetheless added to the weight of his body of work that earned him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003.
As do many of Coetzee's other novels, Age of Iron deals with the subject of apartheid, the South African policy of racial segregation that did not end until 1994. This novel is set in the middle of the apartheid years, when a state of emergency has been declared because of the heightened agitation and sense of outrage amongst opponents of apartheid.
The novel is narrated by a character named Mrs. Curren. She is a retired university professor and has been diagnosed with late-stage, metastatic breast cancer, which has spread to her bones. Largely unaffected by apartheid up until the point at which we meet her, Mrs. Curren is now propelled into the middle of the debate by virtue of Vercueil, a homeless man who has started living in her yard. Because of him, she becomes aware of the violence and unsettlement going on around her and begins to feel conscious of her white privilege and complicit in the oppression of marginalized groups. She shares this with many of the characters in Coetzee's novels who see that the things around them need changing but feel unable to effect the change themselves. A sub-theme in the novel is the enduring ability of humans to evolve throughout their lives; Mrs. Curren is seventy years old and has lived a relatively regular life, yet seeing what goes on around her in a new way enables her to change her perspective and the way she thinks about society.
The issue of apartheid is a common theme of Coetzee's novels. He was an outspoken opponent of apartheid and emigrated to Australia in 2002, becoming a citizen in 2006.
