Coetzee Pulls Out of English Lecture

The Department of English and American Literature and Language sent an e-mail to concentrators last week announcing the cancellation of the prestigious bi-annual Morris Gray Lecture for the second time in two years.

The department had invited the reclusive John M. Coetzee, the winner of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature, to speak at this year’s spring lecture—scheduled for April 30. But the author cancelled due to personal reasons, said department members.

Coetzee, who has gained national fame for his writings on the legacy of apartheid South Africa, was born in Cape Town and currently resides in Australia.

Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory Jorie Graham said that the cancellation was related to general fatigue.

“The first year after winning the Nobel Prize is a nightmare for anyone and he is no doubt somewhat overwhelmed and decided to reschedule at a better time,” said Graham, who was a member of the seven-person committee that selected Coetzee as this spring’s speaker.

But Anna McDonald, a department administrator, said that the cancellation boiled down to scheduling problems.

“There was a scheduling conflict at the last minute on the part of Professor Coetzee,” McDonald said.

Coetzee’s cancellation marks the second time in the last two years the English department has failed to secure a speaker for the lecture.

In fall 2002 after Tom Paulin allegedly made anti-Israel comments to the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram, the English department withdrew an invitation to controversial poet’s just days before he was slated to speak at the lecture.

But Coetzee’s cancellation was not altogether unexpected; he has been extremely shy throughout his illustrious career, refusing to speak to the media despite his public acclaim.

In a March 3 article, Coetzee told The Age, an Australian newspaper, he has avoided the podium since lecturing at Princeton in 1998.

“They liberated me, I hope forever, from the unhappy role of lecturer. Since that day I have never given a lecture, unless what I am saying now turns into a lecture, which I am going to forestall by wringing its neck pretty promptly,” he told the newspaper.

Despite Coetzee’s reclusive reputation, Department Chair Lawrence Buell said he did not regret the choice.

“I had no trepidation whatsoever because Coetzee has friends in the department and had done previous stints of visiting here,” said Buell, who is also the Cabot Professor of American Literature and Marquand Professor of English.

“You have to go for excellent people. Although it is unfortunate that we won’t be able to have a Morris Gray this spring, sometimes cancellations happen,” Buell later added.

Briggs-Copeland Lecturer on English and American Literature and Language Douglas A. Powell, also a member of the Morris Gray selection committee, also said he did not hesitate to choose Coetzee. He said he does not feel that the selection committee needs to be more judicial in its choices for the lecture.

“I didn’t have any trepidation about choosing [Coetzee]. I don’t have any trepidation about choosing anybody for any reason. That includes Paulin. Artists are artists,” Powell said.

McDonald said that this spring’s lecture will not be rescheduled due to logistical concerns.

“It was already scheduled for very late in the semester, and the lecture is a very big lecture and we didn’t think we would have time to do a sufficient amount of publicity,” McDonald said.

Graham said Coetzee could be invited back to Harvard for future date.

Coetzee is a Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago and is currently living in Australia serving as a research fellow at the University of Adelaide.

Coetzee is the first person who has been awarded the distinguished Booker prize twice, but did not publicly receive the award either time. He also did not grant reporters a customary news conference following the Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm in 2003.

“He is notoriously reclusive and very shy with explanation,” said Joshua Schonwald, a staff writer at the University of Chicago News Office. “After he won the Nobel Prize a pool of photographers were staking out his office just to get a shot of him.”

The Morris Gray Lecture has been given since 1929, and it has included such notable poets as T.S. Eliot ’12. It is currently given in both the fall and spring.