"A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma," Churchill once declared of Russia. One might say much the same of JM Coetzee. The only certainty is that his reaction to this news will not be the leap of joy performed by Yann Martel at last year's Booker; nor will he be over wrought by tears in the manner of Roberto Benigni at the Oscars a few years back.
The writer chosen by the Nobel's Swedish committee this year is more emotional than he sometimes seems. But he won't be weeping or whooping.
Anyone who knows John Coetzee would balk at trying to categorise him. One to one he is charming; put him in a crowd and he closes down brutally. His publisher, Geoff Mulligan at Secker & Warburg, often seems as foxed by him as everyone else, as do former colleagues at the University of Cape Town, where Coetzee taught for many years. Some students recall a certain froideur, and this is certainly part of his character.
I don't know Coetzee well, but I have run into him a few times over the years. I first met him in the back of a taxi in Dublin in 1995. Already a multiple prizewinner, he had just been awarded the Irish Times's international fiction prize. "You must get rather tired of this sort of thing?" I said breezily (it was rather late at night). He just smiled. Then, after a pause, said: "Not so much." A typically resonant answer.
A few years later he kindly read the proofs of a novel I had written. But in 1999, sharing a platform with him at a reading at Waterstone's, I got a glimpse of the iron in the soul.
"Do you think it's right we're sitting here discussing literature when the Americans are bombing the Serbs?" asked a member of the audience.
Coetzee said nothing. "Is there any connection?" the questioner persisted. "Frankly, no," said the author, bitingly. The questioner crumpled back into his seat.
So now the most famous literary prize in the world has been awarded to one who clearly hates the "performance" of literary fame. It's an irony Coetzee might appreciate, as someone highly sceptical of the illusions (such as fame) in which humankind finds consolation. He may not have the consensual, inclusive values associated with Nobel laureates but he is a very great writer indeed.
