The Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) will confer an honorary doctorate on John Maxwell Coetzee, the South African–Australian writer and Nobel Prize laureate, on Monday, 13 October 2025, at La Monnaie/De Munt. During this exceptional evening, Coetzee himself will give a lecture and reading, accompanied by musical interludes drawn from operas inspired by his work, including those by Belgian composer Nicholas Lens.
About J.M. Coetzee
John Maxwell Coetzee (born in Cape Town, 1940) is a novelist, translator, essayist, and literary critic. He has published fifteen novels, as well as autobiographical narratives and critical essays. His novels Life and Times of Michael K (1983) and Disgrace (1999) both received the Booker Prize, a unique double distinction. In 2003, he was also awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
This is the first time that a Dutch-speaking university has awarded an honorary doctorate to J.M. Coetzee. Through this distinction, the VUB pays tribute not only to one of the most celebrated authors of our time but also to a thinker who uses literature as an instrument of critical insight and moral imagination.
On the occasion of his visit to Brussels, his Dutch publisher Cossee is releasing Wereld en wandel van Elizabeth Costello, a collection in which Coetzee brings together new and reworked stories about his emblematic character. He is also working on a new opera project based on these texts.
Practical information
Monday, 13 October 2025 at 7 p.m.
La Monnaie/De Munt, Brussels
19:00: Opening of the evening
19:45: Lecture by J.M. Coetzee
20:15: Presentation of the honorary doctorate by the VUB
20:30: Closing
Registration required: please confirm your attendance at Tineke.Sonck@vub.be. Seats are limited.
This event is a collaboration between La Monnaie/De Munt, Passa Porta, Cossee Publishers, and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB).