17 Novels by J. M. Coetzee

Age of Iron is a 1990 novel by South African Nobel Prize winner J. M. Coetzee. It is among his most popular works and was the 1990 Sunday Express Book of the Year. In it, he paints a picture of social and political tragedy unfolding in a country ravaged by racism and violence. Critically acclaimed, it remains one of the most striking pieces of literature regarding South African apartheid and is still used in schools worldwide for literature studies.

Boyhood: Scenes from Provincial Life is a fictionalised autobiographical work by J. M. Coetzee, and focuses on his years spent growing up in South Africa. The novel focuses on his troubled time in Worcester but looks back to happier times living in a large house in Rosebank, Cape Town. By the end of the novel they had moved again, this time to Plumstead, Cape Town.

The Childhood of Jesus is a 2013 novel by South African-born Nobel laureate J. M. Coetzee. The book was published on 7 March 2013, by Jonathan Cape. The U.S. edition was published on 3 September 2013, by Viking.

The Death of Jesus is a 2019 novel by Nobel Prize-winning writer J.M. Coetzee; it is the third in his "Jesus" trilogy, following The Childhood of Jesus (2013) and The Schooldays of Jesus (2016). It was first published in Spanish under the title La muerte de Jesús and distributed throughout Latin America. In fact, it is the second of Coetzee's books to appear first in Spanish, the first being Siete cuentos morales or "Moral Tales".

Diary of a Bad Year is a book by South African-born Nobel laureate J. M. Coetzee. It was released by Text Publishing in Australia on 3 September 2007, in the United Kingdom by Harvill Secker on 6 September, and in the United States on 27 December.

Disgrace is a novel by J. M. Coetzee, published in 1999. It won the Booker Prize. The writer was also awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature four years after its publication.

Dusklands (1974) is the debut novel by J. M. Coetzee, winner of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature. The novel consists of two separate stories, "The Vietnam Project" and "The Narrative of Jacobus Coetzee."

Elizabeth Costello is a 2003 novel by South African-born Nobel Laureate J. M. Coetzee.

Foe is a 1986 novel by South African-born Nobel laureate J. M. Coetzee. Woven around the existing plot of Robinson Crusoe, Foe is written from the perspective of Susan Barton, a castaway who landed on the same island inhabited by "Cruso" and Friday as their adventures were already underway. Like Robinson Crusoe, it is a frame story, unfolded as Barton's narrative while in England attempting to convince the writer Daniel Foe to help transform her tale into popular fiction. Focused primarily on themes of language and power, the novel was the subject of criticism in South Africa, where it was regarded as politically irrelevant on its release. Coetzee revisited the composition of Robinson Crusoe in 2003 in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech.

In the Heart of the Country (1977) is an early novel by South African-born writer J. M. Coetzee. The book is one of Coetzee's more experimental novels and is narrated through 266 numbered paragraphs rather than chapters.

Life & Times of Michael K is a 1983 novel by South African-born writer J. M. Coetzee. The novel won the Booker Prize for 1983. The novel is a story of a man named Michael K, who makes an arduous journey from Cape Town to his mother's rural birthplace, amid a fictitious civil war during the apartheid era, in the 1970-80s.

The Lives of Animals (1999) is a metafictional novella about animal rights by the South African novelist J. M. Coetzee, recipient of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature. The work is introduced by Amy Gutmann and followed by a collection of responses by Marjorie Garber, Peter Singer, Wendy Doniger and Barbara Smuts. It was published by Princeton University Press as part of its Human Values series.

The Master of Petersburg is a 1994 novel by South African writer J. M. Coetzee. The novel is a work of fiction but features the Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky as its protagonist. It is a deep, complex work that draws on the life of Dostoyevsky, the life of the author and the history of Russia to produce profoundly disturbing results. It won the 1995 Irish Times International Fiction Prize.

Slow Man is a 2005 novel by South African-born Nobel laureate J. M. Coetzee, and concerns a man who must learn to adapt after losing a leg in a road accident. The novel has many varied themes, including the nature of care, the relationship between an author and his characters, and man's drive to leave a legacy. It was Coetzee's first novel since winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2003. The novel was longlisted for the 2005 Man Booker Prize.

Summertime is a 2009 novel by South African-born Nobel laureates J. M. Coetzee. It is the third in a series of fictionalized memoirs by Coetzee and details the life of one John Coetzee from the perspective of five people who have known him. The novel largely takes place in the mid to late 1970s, largely in Cape Town, although there are also important scenes in more remote South African settings. While there are obvious similarities between the actual writer of the novel, J. M. Coetzee, and the subject of the novel, John Coetzee, there are some differences - most notably that the John Coetzee of the novel is reported as having died. Within the novel, the opinions and thoughts of the five people are compiled and interpreted by a fictitious biographer, who also adds fragments from John Coetzee's notebooks. It was shortlisted for the 2009 Booker Prize. Coetzee was already a two-time winner of the award and it is for this reason that literary commentator Merritt Moseley believes he did not win it for Summertime.

Waiting for the Barbarians is a novel by the South African writer J. M. Coetzee. First published in 1980, it was chosen by Penguin for its series Great Books of the 20th Century and won both the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize for fiction. American composer Philip Glass has also written an opera of the same name based on the book which premiered in September 2005 at Theater Erfurt, Germany.

Youth (2002) is a semi-fictionalised autobiographical novel by J. M. Coetzee, recounting his struggles in 1960s London after fleeing the political unrest of Cape Town.