Coming of Age Essays

As a 12-year-old schoolboy, Paul Slabolepszy, one of South Africa’s most outspoken anti-apartheid playwrights, had his first encounter with political protest. Raised in a conservative, rural town and educated at a segregated Catholic boarding school, Slabolepszy remembers traveling to Johannesburg for a sporting event with the swim team. On the way, the bus full of…

Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel about a young boys coming of age in Missouri of the mid-1800s. The main character, Huckleberry Finn, spends much time in the novel floating down the Mississippi River on a raft with a runaway slave named Jim. Before he does so, however, Huck spends some…