Disgrace

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 pressue to repent publicly, he resigns and retreats to his daughter Lucy's isolated small holding. For a time, his daughter's influence and 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.

Promotion info

Winner of the 1999 Booker Prize

Author description

J M Coetzee's work includes Waiting For The Barbarians, Life & Times of Michael K, Boyhood: Scenes From Provincial Life, Youth, Elizabeth Costello, Slow Man and, most recently, Diary of A Bad Year. He was the first author to win the Booker Prize twice and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003.