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Disgrace

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Disgrace

Written by: J.M. Coetzee
Narrated by: Jack Klaff
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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.

By the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature and twice winner of the Booker Prize.

 Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction World Literature Fiction

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What the critics say

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
A masterpiece
Exhilarating... One of the best novelists alive
Coetzee captures with appalling skill the white dilemma in South Africa (Justin Cartwright)
Disgrace explores the furthest reaches of what it means to be human; it is at the frontier of world literature (Geoff Dyer)
A great novel by one of the finest authors writing in the English language today (Russel Celyn Jones)
Disgrace is a defining novel of our time, its apparently simple lyricism belying a grave incomprehension that threatens to sever our world in two. There is an answer, but it is very hard and painful to come to
A searing book, and though it is often called spare, it is delightfully intricate, containing a tissue of literary allusions that are brilliantly used (John Mullan, professor of English and Booker of Bookers Judge)
Told with searing emotional and intellectual honesty, this beautifully written novel is as much a meditation on parenthood, old age and the pursuit of love and beauty as it is a snapshot of a country in turmoil
Such dilemmas are so obviously at the heart of South African politics that the allegorical parallels are inescapable...the issues raised, such as the demands of justice versus the need for reconciliation, are timeless
All stars
Most Relevant
This book captures the tensions and moral dilemmas of intersecting societal change. Though specific to South Africa it has universal reach. Superb

One of the best audiobooks I have ever listened to

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For years, I avoided reading this book because I had read several reviews with spoilers.
I thought I knew it.
But when I read it for a recent class, I discovered how essential it is for understanding the world today.
Yes, this work is set in South Africa, but it is the story of most of the conflict we hear/experience today, because so much of the globe is post-colonial and this speaks to how deep that legacy of powerlessness goes.

Mr Klaff is a great narrator. Especially important in this novel because it is written in the first-person, and he captures the voice and dialect of David so well. Highly recommend the book and this reader.

Though devastating---this is a must-listen

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