The Nobel laureate JM Coetzee visits the Museo del Prado on his first day in Madrid

The Nobel laureate in 2003, John Maxwell Coetzee, has began his three week stay in Madrid with a visit to the Museo del Prado’s permanent collection, accompanied by Miguel Falomir, the Director, and Alejandro Vergara, Chief Curator of Flemish Painting and the Northern Schools at the Museo Nacional del Prado.

Coetzee, twice awarded with the Booker Prize and who also had visiting appointments over a long academic career, at universities such as Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and Stanford, is the inaugural fellow for the"Writing the Prado" program, a joint initiative with the Loewe Foundation that invites internationally renowned writers to engage literarily with the Museum’s collections.

During this first visit, Coetzee, who currently lives in Adelaide (Australia), has seen works by Patinir, Bosch, Van der Weyden as well as the Main Gallery, stopping at the exhibition Picasso and El Greco and in room 12 where Las Meninas are on display.

Next July 3, Coetzee will share a conversation, open to the public, with his Spanish translator, Mariana Dimopulos, in the Museum’s auditorium. The autor, has published his last novel “The pole” in Spanish before doing so in English.

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IMAGE CAPTION:

The Nobel laureate in 2003, John Maxwell Coetzee, visits the Museo del Prado’s permanent collection, accompanied by Miguel Falomir, the Director, and Alejandro Vergara, Chief Curator of Flemish Painting and the Northern Schools at the Museo Nacional del Prado. Photo © Museo Nacional del Prado