J.M. Coetzee
9 February: John Maxwell Coetzee born to Zacharias and Vera Wehmeyer Coetzee in Worchester, a rural Afrikaans community in Cape Town. His father is a lawyer for the city government and his mother is a teacher.
The coming to power of the Nationalist Party brings grave consequences for the Coetzee family. Because of his opposition to the legalization of apartheid, Zacharias is dismissed as a government lawyer, and the family moves back to the farm in Worchester.
Zacharias' family were Afrikaners, people of Dutch South African descent. For the most part, Afrikaners were Protestants belonging to the Dutch Reformed Church and spoke Afrikaans, a Dutch South African dialect. Because of the political dissent between the English and the Afrikaans-speaking white South Africans, the school systems for whites were segregated along linguistic lines. JM, however, did not fit neatly into Afrikaans culture. He attended English-medium classes and claimed to be Catholic. He loved reading English literature and never fully identified with rural Afrikaans children, whom he found to be rough, coarse, and poor. Although Afrikaans nationalism was at its height, the people were in the midst of an agricultural depression.
The family moves back to Cape Town, where Zacharias opens a law firm (which eventually fails because of his inability to manage money). The family becomes more and more dependent on Vera's earnings as a teacher. As a young child, JM is very close to his mother but has trouble understanding the nuanced racism of South Africa.
Receives a BA in English from the University of Cape Town.
Receives a BA in Mathematics from the University of Cape Town.
Works as a computer programmer in England, completes his thesis on Ford Maddox Ford and earns his MA from the University of Cape Town.
Marries Philippa Jubber. They have one son in 1966 and one daughter in 1968.
Begins as a professor at SUNY Buffalo.
PhD from U of Texas. His dissertation is on Beckett's fiction.
Returns to the University of Cape Town as a professor of literature after being refused permanent residence in the US.
Dusklands published.
In the Heart of the Country publishd.
Waiting for the Barbarians published. The Nobel Prize committee calls it "a political thriller in the tradition of Joseph Conrad, in which the idealist's naiveté opens the gates to horror."
Divorces Philippa.
Booker Prize for The Life and Times of Michael K. JMC does not attend the award ceremony.
Foe published.
Age of Iron published.
Master of Petersburg published.
Boyhood: Scenes from Provincial Life published.
Booker Prize for Disgrace. Again he does not attend the award ceremony.
Emigrates to Australia.
Youth: Scenes from Provincial Life II published.
Elizabeth Costello: Eight Lessons published.
Wins the Nobel Prize.
Slow Man published.
Diary of a Bad Year published.
Inner Workings: Literary Essays, 2000-2005 published.
Summertime published.
Scenes from Provincial Life published. This is an edited single volume of Boyhood: Scenes from Provincial Life, Youth: Scenes from Provincial Life II, and Summertime. Most critics agree that this is the closest JMC will come to an autobiography.
The Childhood of Jesus published. It is longlisted for the Booker Prize.
The Schooldays of Jesus published. Again, it is longlisted for the Booker Prize.
With The Death of Jesus, JMC completes his "Jesus" trilogy.