The 2003 Nobel Prize for Literature was won by the South African novelist J.
M. Coetzee. This is wonderful news. Coetzee, 63, is unquestionably among
the greatest living writers in English.
The Nobel has often been misapplied.
It evaded Tolstoy, Chekhov, Joyce, Kafka and Nabokov. It was won,
on the other hand, by Bjorns tjerne Bjornson, José Echegaray, Rudolf Eucken
and others now wholly forgotten. In many cases, the judges seem to have
been influenced by political, rather than literary, factors. But in choosing
Coetzee, the judges have got it right and ignored the fact that Coetzee
has many things to say that do not sit comfortably with liberal political
assumptions.
His books deal with difficult, painful
matters -betrayal, the abuse of power, the nature of evil, our cruel treatment
of animals- and ultimately they express deep scepticism over whether or
not any of us are capable of true empathy with others. Coetzee presents
these unwelcome truths with a rigour and purity that cannot be ignored.
Coetzee was born in Cape Town in 1940 and trained as
a computer scientist, coming to London in the Sixties to work for IBM, a
period recollected in a superb autobiographical novel. He then became
a professor of literature in the United States, initially using his computing
skills for verbal analysis of writers, before returning to Cape Town in
the early Seventies, where he has continued to teach and publish literary
criticism. His first fiction, Dusklands, was published in 1974, followed
by In The Heart Of The Country and Waiting For Barbarians, which swiftly
won him international recognition.
Are the following statements TRUE or FALSE? Copy the evidence from the text. No marks are
given for only TRUE or FALSE.
Many years ago Tolstoy was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature
Coetzee has not yet written any book based on his life
Explicación: Para la primera afirmación el parrafo relevante es:
"The Nobel has often been misapplied. It evaded Tolstoy, Ckekhov, Joyce, Kafka nad Nabokov"
La respuesta es falsa ya que entre los autores que no recibieron el premio Nobel se incluye a Tolstoy.
Mientras que para la segunda es:
"Coetzee was born in Cape Town in 1940 and trained as a computer scientist, coming to London in the Sixties to work for IBM, a period recollected in a superb autobiographical novel."
El último párrafo nos ofrece datos de la vida de Coetzee
y nos afirma que escribió una novela autobiográfica sobre
el perÃodo en que vivÃa en Londres en los años 60.
Por lo tanto, sà que ha escrito sobre su vida y la afirmación
es falsa.