Disgrace

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 apologise and repent in an effort to save his job, but he refuses to become a scapegoat in what he sees as a show trial designed to reinforce a stringent political correctness. He preempts the authorities and leaves his job, and the city, to spend time with his grown-up lesbian daughter on her remote farm.Things between them are strained - there is much from the past they need to reconcile - and the situation becomes critical when they are the victims of a brutal and horrifying attack. In spectacularly powerful and lucid prose, Coetzee uses all his formidable skills to engage with a post-apartheid culture in unexpected and revealing ways. This examination into the sexual and political lawlines of modern South Africa as it tries desperately to start a fresh page in its history is chilling, uncompromising and unforgettable.

Promotion info

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING JOHN MALKOVICH

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.