South African writer J.M. Coetzee has been knighted in Amsterdam at the start of a festival dedicated to the Nobel prize winner.

Coetzee has been a made a Companion of the Order of the Dutch Lion. He received the royal distinction at the Amsterdam festival, his Dutch publisher Cossee announced.

Each year, only a few people receive the honour – rarely a foreigner. As well as academic work in linguistics and literature, Coetzee has authored novels, essays, short stories and translations. He won the British Booker Prize twice, for The Life and Times of Michael K (1983) and Disgrace (1999).

He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003. His most recent novel, Summertime, which appeared in 2009, is the latest in a series of autobiographical works, which so far comprise Boyhood (1998) and Youth (2002).

After retiring from the University of Cape Town in 2002, Coetzee moved to Australia, where he now lives.

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