Briggs-Copeland Lecturer on English and American Literature and Language Douglas A. Powell, also a member of the Morris Gray selection committee, also said he did not hesitate to choose Coetzee. He said he does not feel that the selection committee needs to be more judicial in its choices for the lecture.

“I didn’t have any trepidation about choosing [Coetzee]. I don’t have any trepidation about choosing anybody for any reason. That includes Paulin. Artists are artists,” Powell said.

McDonald said that this spring’s lecture will not be rescheduled due to logistical concerns.

“It was already scheduled for very late in the semester, and the lecture is a very big lecture and we didn’t think we would have time to do a sufficient amount of publicity,” McDonald said.

Graham said Coetzee could be invited back to Harvard for future date.

Coetzee is a Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago and is currently living in Australia serving as a research fellow at the University of Adelaide.

Coetzee is the first person who has been awarded the distinguished Booker prize twice, but did not publicly receive the award either time. He also did not grant reporters a customary news conference following the Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm in 2003.

“He is notoriously reclusive and very shy with explanation,” said Joshua Schonwald, a staff writer at the University of Chicago News Office. “After he won the Nobel Prize a pool of photographers were staking out his office just to get a shot of him.”

The Morris Gray Lecture has been given since 1929, and it has included such notable poets as T.S. Eliot ’12. It is currently given in both the fall and spring.