Disgrace

J.M. Coetzee 1999

Devastation Rating

Existential Dread
apartheid South Africa guilt gender

Our Take

David Lurie loses his professorship after an affair with a student, retreats to his daughter's farm, and watches South Africa in the aftermath of apartheid exact its costs on his body and his daughter's. Coetzee refuses to distribute guilt cleanly. The country's history and Lurie's failure are the same story.

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