Did you think it was overdue? I haven't read anything by him.

I do still hold a grudge against the Nobel committee for ignoring Graham Greene while he was alive (you have to be alive to win the prize).

Definitely he was overdue - along with Mario Vargas Llosa. And Phillip Roth ought to win it one of these years too.

The U of Chicago tradition of claiming every Nobel Prize Winner who changes a flat tire in Hyde Park continues. They have a better claim to Coetzee than to others they've claimed as the Tribune points out on its front page today.

I think it's a little bit of a stretch, although one of my best friends has met him through the university, so it can't be all lies (unless my friend is participating).

About time, too, some would say. Including me. I knew in 1986 (when I was a student of his) that he would get the Nobel some day.