Which novel gave J. M. Coetzee his first Booker Prize?

J. M. Coetzee won his first Booker Prize with Life & Times of Michael K. The 1983 novel follows Michael K, a gardener with a cleft lip, as he tries to take his ill mother from Cape Town to her rural birthplace during a fictional civil war in apartheid-era South Africa.

The book is divided into three parts and focuses on freedom, bureaucracy, isolation and the individual’s resistance to being absorbed by political systems. Michael’s journey continues even after his mother dies, and his attempts to live independently make him an unusually elusive Booker-winning protagonist.

A common mix-up is Coetzee’s later Booker winner, Disgrace, which earned him the prize again in 1999. Waiting for the Barbarians was shortlisted for the 1980 Booker but did not win. Coetzee became the first writer to win the Booker twice.