Biography
John Maxwell Coetzee, better known as J.M.
Coetzee, was born in South Africa on February 9th, 1940. His father
worked for the government and also as a sheep farmer. When Coetzee was eight, his
father lost the government job due to his differing views from the then
apartheid government. The family then moved to the provincial town of
Worcester.
During
his early years, his studies were done in Cape Town where he obtained his B.A.
in 1960 and his M.A. in 1963. He then traveled the world working as a
systems programmer for International Computers in Bracknell, Berkshire from
1964-1965. He later obtained his P.H.D. in literature from the University
of Texas at Austin in 1969. Upon completion of these studies, he returned
to his native land of South Africa to join up as a lecturer at the University
of Cape Town in 1972 until 1983. In 1984 and 1986 he would again journey
overseas to become the Butler Professor of English at the State University of
New York in Buffalo. He was then the Hinkley Professor of English at John
Hopkins University in 1986 and 1989 and the Visiting Professor of English at
Harvard University in 1991.
J.M. Coetzee was married in 1963 and then divorced in 1980. He had one
son and one daughter from the marriage. His son was killed in an accident
at the age of 23. Coetzee’s separation from his wife before his divorce
was widely expected by his friends as many labeled him as a reclusive and
private man. This label was further evidenced by the fact that he did not
journey to London to receive the Booker Prize in 1984 for his novel: The
Life and Times of Michael K, nor when he again won the honor for his novel Disgrace
in 1999.
Author Rian Malan descibes Coetzee as: "a
man of almost monkish self-discipline and dedication. He does not drink, smoke
or eat meat. He cycles vast distances to keep fit and spends at least an hour
at his writing-desk each morning, seven days a week. A colleague who has worked
with him for more than a decade claims to have seen him laugh just once. An
acquaintance has attended several dinner parties where Coetzee has uttered not
a single word." (qtd. In Cowley)
However, Coetzee's solitude has not
allowed him to go unnoticed in any way. His books have become worldwide
bestsellers and he is the only author to have ever won the Booker Prize twice.
http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Coetzee.html
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Academic year 2008/2009
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Universitat de Valčncia Press