Disgrace

From the Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. J.M. Coetzee’s latest novel, The Schooldays of Jesus, is now available from Viking. Late Essays: 2006-2016 will be available January 2018.

„Compulsively readable… A novel that not only works its spell but makes it impossible for us to lay it aside once we’ve finished reading it.“ –The New Yorker

At fifty-two, Professor David Lurie is divorced, filled with desire, but lacking in passion. When an affair with a student leaves him jobless, shunned by friends, and ridiculed by his ex-wife, he retreats to his daughter Lucy’s smallholding. David’s visit becomes an extended stay as he attempts to find meaning in his one remaining relationship. Instead, an incident of unimaginable terror and violence forces father and daughter to confront their strained relationship and the equallity complicated racial complexities of the new South Africa.

Editorial Reviews

Disgrace is not a hard or obscure book–it is, among other things, compulsively readable–but what it may well be is an authentically spiritual document, a lament for the soul of a disgraced century.“–The New Yorker

„A subtly brilliant commentary on the nature and balance of power in his homeland…. Disgrace is a mini-opera without music by a writer at the top of his form.“–Time

„Mr. Coetzee, in prose lean yet simmering with feeling, has indeed achieved a lasting work: a novel as haunting and powerful as Albert Camus’s The Stranger.“–The Wall Street Journal

„A tough, sad, stunning novel.“–Baltimore Sun
– From the Publisher