Short description
A divorced, middle-aged English professor finds himself increasingly unable to resist affairs with his female students. When discovered by the college authorities he is expected to apologize to save his job, but instead he refuses and resigns, retiring to live with his daughter.
Long description
After years teaching Romantic poetry at the Technical University of Cape Town, David Lurie, middle-aged and twice divorced, has an impulsive affair with a student. The affair sours; he is denounced and summoned before a committee of inquiry. Willing to admit his guilt, but refusing to yield to pressure to repent publicly, he resigns and retreats to his daughter Lucy's isolated smallholding. For a time, his daughter's influence and the natural rhythms of the farm promise to harmonise his discordant life. But the balance of power in the country is shifting. He and Lucy become victims of a savage and disturbing attack which brings into relief all the faultlines in their relationship.
Review
Exhilarating... One of the best novelists alive Sunday Times
awards
Winner of Booker Prize for Fiction 1999. Winner of Commonwealth Writers Prize 2000. Shortlisted for WH Smith Literary Prize 2000. Shortlisted for WH Smith Annual Literary Award 2000.
additional information
J.M. Coetzee's work includes Waiting For the Barbarians, Life & Times of Michael K, Boyhood, Youth, Disgrace and Diary of a Bad Year. He was the first author to win the Booker Prize twice for Life & Times of Michael K and Disgrace, which also won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003.
Customer reviews & ratings
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Not for the feint hearted!
Reviewed by Mr Bruce Liebenberg from Johannesburg on 17 March 2003
1156 of 2311 people found the following review helpful:
This is a disturbing story of the realities of post-Apartheid South Africa. Disgrace won the 1999 Booker Prize and deservedly so. It is powerful and insightful. But beware, this is not for the feint hearted. It touches and inflames raw nerves and leaves one utterly drained. It will open your eyes.
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