when Nobel Prize winner JM Coetzee answers, more or less, our questions

Interview Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003, the author of “Disgrace” published a magnificent novel, “The Pole”. Coetzee very rarely gives interviews. And when he gives it, it’s a little dry. The proof.

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Should a writer be likeable? I remember a terrible session with Toni Morrison. I didn’t get on very well with Derek Walcott (Saint Lucia poet and Nobel Prize winner for literature) and Zadie Smith never made much effort despite unconditional support from me and a visit to London (she had forgot the appointment). But I came out honorably with VS Naipaul, known by all my colleagues, in France and abroad, as the worst of all: he happened several times to fire the journalist, even if he came from far away, if his questions were not to his liking. It was at Lutetia, shortly before his death, and I see the scene again. Naipaul was seated on the sofa in the bar. His wife sat next to him. He looked at me with condescending kindness. Most often, it was his wife who answered for him.

If we measured the likeability of a writer on a scale of 1 to 10, JM Coetzee, 84, would probably score a 3. The Australian writer of South African origin, twice winner of the Booker Prize (in 1983 for “Michael K, his life, his times” and in 1999 for “Disgrace”), Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003, does not grant any interviews other than by email, refuses to give any more often and, when you are lucky enough for the fire to pass…