Coetzee was born in Cape Town, Cape Province, Union of South Africa, on 9 February 1940 to Afrikaner parents.[2][3] His father, Zacharias Coetzee (1912–1988), was an occasional attorney and government employee, and his mother, Vera Coetzee (née Wehmeyer; 1904–1986), a schoolteacher.[4][5] His father was often absent, and enlisted in the army and fought in World War II to avoid being prosecuted on a criminal charge. Vera and her children therefore relied on financial and other support from relatives.[6] The family mainly spoke English at home, but Coetzee spoke Afrikaans with other relatives.[4]
He is descended from 17th-century Dutch immigrants to South Africa,[6][7] on his father's side, and from Dutch, German, and Polish immigrants through his mother.[8][9] His mother's grandfather was a Pole, referred to by the Germanised form, Balthazar du Biel, but actually born Balcer Dubiel in 1844 in the village of Czarnylas, in a part of Poland annexed by Prussia. His ancestry caused a lifelong preoccupation with Polish literature and culture, culminating in his 2022 novel The Pole.[10]
Coetzee spent most of his early life in Cape Town and in Worcester, a town in the Cape Province (modern-day Western Cape), as recounted in his fictionalised memoir, Boyhood (1997). His family moved to Worcester when he was eight, after his father lost his government job.[5] Coetzee attended St. Joseph's College, a Catholic school in the Cape Town suburb Rondebosch.[11] He studied mathematics and English at the University of Cape Town (UCT), receiving a Bachelor of Arts with honours in English in 1960 and a Bachelor of Arts with honours in mathematics in 1961.[12][13]
Coetzee moved to the United Kingdom in 1962 and worked as a computer programmer for IBM in London and ICT (International Computers and Tabulators) in Bracknell, staying until 1965.[4] His experiences in England are recounted in Youth (2002), his second volume of fictionalised memoirs.
In 1963, the University of Cape Town awarded Coetzee a Master of Arts degree for his thesis The Works of Ford Madox Ford with Particular Reference to the Novels (1963).[4][14]
