J.M. Coetzee

J.M. Coetzee was born in Cape Town, South Africa, on 9 February 1940. He trained in mathematics and English, worked for a time as a computer programmer, and went on to a long career as a scholar and university teacher, in South Africa and abroad. He later moved to Australia and became an Australian citizen, and he is often described as a South African and Australian writer.

His fiction is spare, precise and morally searching. Many of his novels explore power, cruelty, guilt and the limits of understanding, often against the background of South African history or in invented, unnamed places. He is also known for his interest in animals, language and the responsibilities of the writer. He twice won the Booker Prize and received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2003. Readers value him for the clarity of his prose and for books that ask difficult questions without offering easy answers.