- 1940
- Born in Cape Town.
- 1960s
- Graduates from the University of Cape Town with Mathematics and English.
- 1972
- Earns a PhD in literature from the University of Texas.
- Teaches literature at the University of New York until 1983.
- 1974
- Starts writing fiction, and publishes two novellas titled Dusklands.
- 1976
- Publishes In The Heart of The Country, which wins the CNA and Mofolo-Plomer Prizes.
- 1980
- Publishes Waiting For The Barbarians, which focuses on a government magistrate who begins to question the motives of his employers, and receives critical acclaim in Coetzee's country as well as his first recognition internationally. Wins the CNA Prize (South Africa's highest literary honour), and the Geoffrey Faber and James Tait Black Memorial Prizes
- 1983
- Awarded Booker and CNA Prizes for Life And Times Of Michael K, about a young South African man trying to shield his mother from the country's civil unrest.
- 1986
- Coetzee returns to South Africa.
- 1987
- Publishes Foe
- 1988
- Publishes White Writing, his first volume of essays, which penetratingly analyzing racist and colonial prejudices in Afrikaans and South African English literature
- 1990
- Publishes Age of Iron
- 1992
- Publishes A Land Apart
- 1994
- Publishes The Master of Petersburg
- 1996
- Publishes Giving Offense: Essays on Censorship
- 1997
- Publishes a slim autobiography, Boyhood: Scenes from Provincial Life, which receives the National Book Critics Circle Award
- 1999
- Publishes The Lives of Animals
- 1999
- Publishes Disgrace, which is set on a remote South African farm, and unpacks conflict on personal and political levels. Coetzee becomes the first author to be awarded the Booker Prize twice. He also receives the Lannan Literary Award for Fiction.
- 2001
- Publishes Stranger Shores: Literary Essays, 1986-1999
- 2002
- Publishes Youth: Scenes from Provincial Life II
Retires from his Professorship at the University of Cape Town - 2003
- Publishes Elizabeth Costello, which makes the long list for the Booker Prize. Is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.