Disgrace
A BBC Radio 4 Good Read
Published on 4. July 2024
Book
Paperback/Softback
240 pages
978-1-78487-905-1 (ISBN)
Description
After years teaching Romantic poetry in Cape Town, David Lurie 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.
'A great novel by one of the finest authors writing in the English language today' The Times
'At the frontier of world literature' Sunday Telegraph
**One of the BBC's 100 Novels That Shaped Our World**
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.
'A great novel by one of the finest authors writing in the English language today' The Times
'At the frontier of world literature' Sunday Telegraph
**One of the BBC's 100 Novels That Shaped Our World**
Reviews / Votes
What is remarkable about Coetzee's vision as a novelist is that it remains intensely human, rooted in common experience and replete with failure, doubt and frustration-GuardianExhilarating... One of the best novelists alive-Sunday Times
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Vintage Publishing
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 132 mm
Thickness: 17 mm
Weight
175 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78487-905-1 (9781784879051)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Person
J.M. Coetzee's work includes Waiting for the Barbarians, Life & Times of Michael K, Boyhood, Youth, Disgrace, Summertime, The Childhood of Jesus and, most recently, The Schooldays of Jesus. He was the first author to win the Booker Prize twice and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2003.