Nobel Prize
Outcasts' tales win judges' vote 1
'He should belong to our literary heritage'
Stockholm, AP
South African writer J. M. Coetzee, whose stories tell of innocents and outcasts against the backdrop of apartheid and dwarfed by history, has been awarded the Nobel Prize for literature.
The 63-year-old, long a favoured contender, was tapped for the award for his ability to write fiction which "in innumerable guises portrays the surprising involvement of the outsider".
The Swedish Academy said Mr. Coetzee's novels were characterised by "Well-crafted composition, pregnant dialogue and analytical brilliance".
The writer, whose full name is John Maxwell Coetzee, is known for Dusklands and Disgrace, which won the 1999 Booker Prize - his second Booker - as well as 1990's Age of Iron and 1994's The Master of Petersburg.
Academy permanent secretary Horace Engdahl said the decision had been relatively an easy one.
"We were very much convinced of the lasting value of his contribution to literature - not the number of books, but the variety, and the very high average quality, " he said. "I think he is a writer who will continue to be discussed and analysed and we think he should belong to our literary heritage."
The prize includes a cheque for more $1.3 million but can also bestow the added advantage of increased sales, celebrity and admiration.
The award went to another South African, Nadine Gordimer, in 1991.