On 13 October 2025, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) will confer an honorary doctorate upon South African–Australian writer and Nobel Prize laureate J.M. Coetzee at La Monnaie/De Munt in Brussels. With this recognition, VUB not only honors one of the most celebrated authors of our time, but also a writer who has consistently used literature in an exceptional way to question the world.
Book your ticket for the award ceremony evening at La Monnaie in Brussels.
A life between languages, continents and systems of knowledge John Maxwell Coetzee (b. Cape Town, 1940) is a novelist, translator, essayist, and literary scholar. He studied English literature, mathematics, and linguistics, and earned his PhD from the University of Texas at Austin in 1968, with a dissertation on Samuel Beckett. He taught at universities in the United States and South Africa, before settling in Australia in 2002, where he became an honorary research fellow at the University of Adelaide.
A body of work without borders Coetzee authored fifteen novels as well as autobiographical narratives, essays, and critical studies. His novels Life and Times of Michael K (1983) and Disgrace (1999) each won the Booker Prize—an unprecedented achievement in the literary world. In 2003, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, confirming his place as one of the most significant literary voices of our time. His work engages with themes such as apartheid, censorship, the position of the outsider, the relationship between human and non-human, and the ethical responsibility of literature.
Beyond his own writing, Coetzee has consistently fostered dialogue and collaboration. His work as translator, editor, and correspondent reflects a generosity towards fellow writers. This is evident in his correspondence with Paul Auster (Here and Now), his dialogues with Mariana Dimópulos (Speaking in Tongues / Spreken in tongen, 2025), and his adaptation of Olive Schreiner’s novel From Man to Man (Van man tot man, 2025), now appearing for the first time in Dutch.
Coetzee’s first honorary doctorate from a Dutch-speaking university
By awarding Coetzee an honorary doctorate—the first conferred by a Dutch-speaking university—VUB acknowledges a writer who deliberately draws attention to voices and literatures from minoritized voices and literatures, and to the value of linguistic diversity and translation. Throughout his career Coetzee has foregrounded problematic power relations that are played out in decisions concerning language, publishers, and platforms. His thematically and stylistically innovative oeuvre resonates strongly with the humanistic and multilingual mission of VUB.
Jan Danckaert, Rector of the VUB: “With this honorary doctorate, VUB honours a luminary in world literature, a thinker who, with his sharp pen and moral courage, has urged generations to examine structures of power, challenge injustice, and explore the essence of humanity. J.M. Coetzee embodies the values of free thought, intellectual freedom and active social engagement that our university holds dear."
Pauwels Academy of Critical Thinking
The evening of the 13th October also marks the opening of VUB’s new PACT season. With PACT – the Pauwels Academy of Critical Thinking – VUB actively promotes critical thinking as a method. By organizing evenings with passionate thinkers and engaged scholars from Belgium and abroad, VUB aims to show the widest possible audience that critical doubt, uncertainty, and evolving insights are not weaknesses, but in fact the driving force behind genuine scientific and societal progress. Our ambition: for every participant to go home with a new idea or a new question. Only by consistently embracing this attitude can we find answers to the growing challenges facing our university, our society, and the world at large.
