Wits honours JM Coetzee

Wits University today conferred an honorary doctorate on renowned author and Nobel Laureate JM Coetzee during the December graduations in the Wits Great Hall. 

Coetzee, two times recipient of the Booker prize and the 2003 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, received a Doctor in Literature (DLitt) degree. 

Coetzee also addressed the graduates.

To listen to his address, click here

To read his address, click here

To read his citation, delivered by Prof. Tawane Kupe, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, click here 

Coetzee was born in South Africa in 1940 and educated at the University of Cape Town, where he studied literature and mathematics, and the University of Texas, where he took his PhD in 1968. 

During a lengthy academic career he held professorial appointments at the University of Cape Town and the University of Chicago, as well as visiting appointments at Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, and Stanford University. 

He is the author of thirteen works of fiction, including Waiting for the Barbarians (1980) and Disgrace (1999). He has also published memoirs, literary criticism, and translations. 

Among the awards he has won are the Booker Prize (twice) and, in 2003, the Nobel Prize for Literature. 

Since 2002 he has lived in Adelaide, South Australia.