“Why? Because a woman's beauty does not belong to her alone. It is part of the bounty she brings into the world. She has a duty to share it.”
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J. M. Coetzee
John Maxwell Coetzee is a South African and Australian novelist, essayist, and translator. The recipient of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature, Coetzee is one of the most critically acclaimed and decorated authors in the English language. He has won the Booker Prize (twice), the CNA Literary Award (thrice), the Jerusalem Prize, the Prix Femina étranger, and The Irish Times International Fiction Pr…
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culture · South African and Australian writer (born 1940) · linguist · translator · novelist · essayist · librettist · screenwriter · university teacher · poet · writer · prose writer · also J. M. Coetzee, John Maxwell Coetzee, John Coetzee, J.M. Coetzee, Coetzee
Born 9 February 1940 · Q43293
72 published statements · 0 followers
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2026· 10 entries
“You are father-born. You have no mother. The pain you feel is the pain of lack, not the pain of loss. What you hope to regain in my person you have in truth never had.”
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“His mother is entitled to her convictions, he believes. If she wants to spend her declining years making propaganda against cruelty to animals, that is her right.”
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“Norma and his mother have never liked each other. Probably his mother would have chosen not to like any woman he married.”
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“Is he happy? By most measurements, yes, he believes he is. However, he has not forgotten the last chorus of Oedipus: Call no man happy until he is dead.”
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“Not rape, not quite that, but undesired nevertheless, undesired to the core. As though she had decided to go slack, die within herself for the duration, like a rabbit when the jaws of the fox close on its neck. So that everything done to her might be done, as it were, far away.”
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“s use of vivisection on animals for scientific research. He wrote:”
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“In a state with no official religion, the TRC was somewhat anomalous: a court of a certain kind based to a large degree on Christian teaching and on a strand of Christian teaching accepted in their hearts by only a tiny proportion of the citizenry. Only the future will tell what the TRC managed to achieve”
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The Guardian: JM Coetzee declines to attend Jerusalem writers festival over Israel’s ‘genocidal campaign in Gaza’
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Coetzee declined an invitation from the Jerusalem Writers Festival due to Israel's actions in Gaza, which he called a "genocidal campaign"
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2025· 1 entry
Awarded Companion of the Order of Australia (2025).
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2023· 4 entries
The Guardian: The Pole and Other Stories by JM Coetzee review – a late love affair
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The Guardian: The Pole and Other Stories by JM Coetzee review – lessons in beauty
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The Guardian: Where to start with: JM Coetzee
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The Guardian: The Pole and Other Stories by JM Coetzee review – if this is his final book, it is a great one
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2022· 1 entry
The Guardian: Lacuna by Fiona Snyckers review – a heavy-handed response to JM Coetzee’s Disgrace
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2021· 1 entry
The Guardian: Margaret Atwood and JM Coetzee demand release of jailed Iranian writers
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2020· 1 entry
The Guardian: The Death of Jesus by JM Coetzee review – a boy who challenges the world
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2019· 2 entries
The Guardian: The Death of Jesus by JM Coetzee review – a barren end to a bizarre trilogy
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The Guardian: Rylance, Depp and Pattinson bring Coetzee to big screen
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2016· 1 entry
“There is no longer a left worth speaking of, and a language of the left. The language of politics, with its new economistic bent, is even more repellent than it was 15 years ago”
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2015· 1 entry
To address unofficial Iranian translations of foreign works – Iran does not recognize international copyright agreements – Coetzee stated his disapproval of the practice on moral grounds and wished to have it sent to jou
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2013· 2 entries
Won Medalla Delmira Agustini (2013).
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Richard Poplak of the Daily Maverick called Coetzee "inarguably the most celebrated and decorated living English-language author"
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2010· 2 entries
Awarded Christina Stead Prize for Fiction (2010).
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Coetzee was made an international ambassador for Adelaide Writers' Week, along with American novelist Susanna Moore and English poet Michael Hulse
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2008· 1 entry
At the behest of John Banville, who alerted him to the matter, Coetzee wrote to The Irish Times of his opposition to Trinity College Dublin's use of vivisection on animals for scientific research
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2006· 1 entry
Was elected to the American Philosophical Society
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2005· 2 entries
Awarded Order of Mapungubwe in Gold presented by Thabo Mbeki (2005).
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Coetzee criticised contemporary anti-terrorism laws as resembling those of South Africa's apartheid regime: "I used to think that the people who created [South Africa's] laws that effectively suspended the rule of law we
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2004· 3 entries
The Lord Mayor of Adelaide handed Coetzee the keys to the city
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2010 (when he introduced Geoff Dyer), and 2019 (when he introduced Marlene van Niekerk)
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Was made Honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities
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2003· 3 entries
Awarded Nobel Prize in Literature (2003).
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And Patrick White in 1973, was organised by the head of JMCCCP, Anne Pender, and held by the University of Adelaide
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For Elizabeth Costello and in 2005 for Slow Man
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2002· 1 entry
And became an Australian citizen in 2006
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2001· 1 entry
Won the Outstanding Alumnus award at the University of Texas
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1999· 3 entries
Awarded Booker Prize for Disgrace (1999).
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The African National Congress's submission to a South African Human Rights Commission investigation into racism in the media said that Disgrace depicted racist stereotypes
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Called Coetzee "a man of almost monkish self-discipline and dedication", and reported—based on hearsay—that he rarely laughed or even spoke
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1998· 1 entry
Received the Lannan Literary Award for Fiction
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1996· 1 entry
When he was invited to appear at Adelaide Writers' Week
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1995· 1 entry
And for Disgrace in 2000 (the latter personally presented by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace), and the 1987 Jerusalem Prize for the Freedom of the Individual in Society
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1994· 1 entry
Coetzee became Arderne Professor in English, and in 1999 he was appointed Distinguished Professor in the Faculty of Humanities
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1991· 2 entries
I was attracted by the free and generous spirit of the people, by the beauty of the land itself and—when I first saw Adelaide—by the grace of the city that I now have the honour of calling my home
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“I did not so much leave South Africa, a country with which I retain strong emotional ties, but come to Australia. I came because from the time of my first visit in 1991, I was attracted by the free and generous spirit of the people, by the beauty of the land itself and—when I first saw Adelaide—by the grace of the city that I now have the honour of calling my home.”
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1989· 1 entry
At the age of 23 after accidentally falling from the balcony of his Johannesburg apartment
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1988· 1 entry
Awarded Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (1988).
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1987· 2 entries
Awarded Jerusalem Prize (1987).
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Coetzee spoke of the limitations of art in South African society, whose structures had resulted in "deformed and stunted relations between human beings" and "a deformed and stunted inner life"
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1985· 1 entry
Awarded Prix Femina étranger (1985).
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1984· 1 entry
Coetzee received an Honorary Fellow Award at the University of Cape Town
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1983· 1 entry
Awarded Booker Prize for Life & Times of Michael K (1983).
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1981· 1 entry
Awarded Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize (1981).
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1980· 9 entries
Awarded James Tait Black Memorial Prize (1980).
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“Historia nabiera życia dopiero wtedy, gdy stwarzamy dla niej miejsce we własnej świadomości; nikt nie ma prawa obarczać takim brzemieniem żadnego wolnego człowieka.”
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“Im mniej istotnych różnic dzieli dwa obozy, tym zajadlej się one nienawidzą.”
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“Rozsądek polega między innymi na tym, żeby zawsze mówić raczej mniej niż więcej.”
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“(…) ten obcy, który siebie nazywa mną, czasem rozbija lustro i mówi do mnie. Mówi przeze mnie. Mówi dzisiaj. Teraz. Mówi o miłości.”
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“Zdaje sobie sprawę z brzydkiego wyrazu mojej twarzy, wyrazu drapieżnego, który mają ludzie przyłapani w momencie spółkowania.”
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“(…) w przytłaczającym milczeniu, które jest głównym elementem naszego wspólnego obcowania, niepodobna, by nie czuła, jak mój uporczywy wzrok kładzie się na niej ciężarem całego mojego ciała.”
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“Niektórzy ludzie nie są stworzeni do zabawy.”
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“W sumie Londyn ciężko go doświadcza. John ma już skromniejsze ambicje niż przedtem – znacznie skromniejsze. Londyńczycy początkowo rozczarowali go ubóstwem swoich ambicji. A teraz bliski jest tego, żeby do nich dołączyć. Dzień w dzień miasto doświadcza go i karze, a on, jak bity pies, stopniowo się uczy…”
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1972· 1 entry
Coetzee returned to South Africa and was appointed lecturer in the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Cape Town
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1968· 1 entry
Coetzee began teaching English literature at the State University of New York at Buffalo, where he stayed until 1971
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1965· 1 entry
Coetzee went to the University of Texas at Austin in the United States and enrolled in bibliography and Old English courses
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1963· 1 entry
The University of Cape Town awarded Coetzee a Master of Arts degree for his thesis The Works of Ford Madox Ford with Particular Reference to the Novels (1963)
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1962· 1 entry
And worked as a computer programmer for IBM in London and ICT (International Computers and Tabulators) in Bracknell, staying until 1965
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1960· 1 entry
And a Bachelor of Arts with honours in mathematics in 1961
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1940· 1 entry
Born 1940-02-09.
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1844· 1 entry
In the village of Czarnylas (Schwarzwald), in a part of Poland annexed by Prussia
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