1940
Born in Cape Town.
1960
s Graduates from the University of Cape Town with Mathematics and English.
1972
Earns a PhD in literature from the University of Texas.
1972
Teaches literature at the University of New York until 1983.
1974
Starts writing fiction, and publishes two novellas titled Dusklands.
1976
Publishes In The Heart of The Country, which wins the CNA and Mofolo-Plomer Prizes.
1980
Publishes Waiting For The Barbarians, which focuses on a government magistrate who begins to question the motives of his employers, and receives critical acclaim in Coetzee's country as well as his first recognition internationally. Wins the CNA Prize (South Africa's highest literary honour), and the Geoffrey Faber and James Tait Black Memorial Prizes
1983
Awarded Booker and CNA Prizes for Life And Times Of Michael K, about a young South African man trying to shield his mother from the country's civil unrest.
1986
Coetzee returns to South Africa.
1987
Publishes Foe
1988
Publishes White Writing, his first volume of essays, which penetratingly analyzing racist and colonial prejudices in Afrikaans and South African English literature
1990
Publishes Age of Iron
1992
Publishes A Land Apart
1994
Publishes The Master of Petersburg
1996
Publishes Giving Offense: Essays on Censorship
1997
Publishes a slim autobiography, Boyhood: Scenes from Provincial Life, which receives the National Book Critics Circle Award
1999
Publishes The Lives of Animals
1999
Publishes Disgrace, which is set on a remote South African farm, and unpacks conflict on personal and political levels. Coetzee becomes the first author to be awarded the Booker Prize twice. He also receives the Lannan Literary Award for Fiction.
2001
Publishes Stranger Shores: Literary Essays, 1986-1999
2002
Publishes Youth: Scenes from Provincial Life II
Retires from his Professorship at the University of Cape Town
Retires from his Professorship at the University of Cape Town
2003
Publishes Elizabeth Costello, which makes the long list for the Booker Prize. Is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
