NOBEL PRIZE WINNER JOHN MAXWELL COETZEE PREPARES TO TEACH CLASS, 2003-10-06 (photo)

Distinguished Service Professor John Maxwell Coetzee prepares to teach his class in Plato at the University of Chicago, October 6, 2003. South African novelist Coetzee won the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday, a choice hailed by critics who described him as an elusive man but accessible writer, both literary and politically engaged. A white South African raised in an English-speaking home and writing in English despite his Afrikaans background, he portrays a desolate vision of his racially divided country with a lean, allegorical style compared with Franz Kafka and Samuel Beckett. REUTERS/Frank Polich