A Brief Introduction to the Author of Shame

John Maxwell Coetzee (1940-), 1940 was born in Cape Town, South Africa. He is a South African writer and won the Nobel Prize in Literature Prize in 2003. Coetzee's novels "accurately depict the essence of human nature under many masks", and his works "Shame", "Waiting for the Barbarian" and "Going Deep into the Inland" are the models of this style. The Royal Swedish Awards Committee pointed out that Coetzee won the prize because: "In the history of mankind's opposition to barbarism and ignorance, Coetzee expressed his firm support for the struggle experience of vulnerable individuals through writing." 1983 won the British Booker Prize for Literature twice for The Life and Times of Michael K, and 1999 won it for Shame. Coetzee and another Nobel Prize in Literature winner, gordimer, are regarded as the twin stars of South African contemporary literature.