Coetzee teaches Plato, Whitman
2003-10-02 16:12
Chicago - South African writer JM Coetzee, who won the Nobel Literature Prize on Thursday, is teaching graduate-level courses at the University of Chicago this autumn on Plato's Phaedrus and US poet Walt Whitman, the university said.
The university's website noted that Coetzee is part of its Committee on Social Thought, which trains students working toward a doctorate in literature, philosophy, history, theology, art or politics.
The writer has been teaching at the university for several years, initially as a visiting professor.
He could not immediately be reached for comment in Chicago on Thursday.
Coetzee - who earned a doctorate in English and linguistics in 1969 from the University of Texas at Austin - also works at the University of Adelaide in Australia and has taught at prestigious US universities including Harvard and Johns Hopkins.
Coetzee was born on February 9, 1940, and spent most of his childhood in Cape Town and Worcester, a scenic Western Cape town northeast of the South African harbour city.
He began his writing career in 1974 and rose to international renown in 1980 with his novel Waiting for the Barbarians.
He received the Booker Prize for his Life and Times of Michael K in 1983 and for
Disgrace in 1999.
- Sapa-AFP
- SAPA