num_pages: 220
description: Set in post-apartheid South Africa, J. M. Coetzee’s searing novel tells the story of David Lurie, a twice divorced, 52-year-old professor of communications and Romantic Poetry at Cape Technical University. Lurie believes he has created a comfortable, if somewhat passionless, life for himself. He lives within his financial and emotional means. Though his position at the university has been reduced, he teaches his classes dutifully; and while age has diminished his attractiveness, weekly visits to a prostitute satisfy his sexual needs. He considers himself happy. However, when Lurie seduces one of his students, he sets in motion a chain of events that will shatter his complacency and leave him utterly disgraced.
language: English
title: Disgrace
titlecomplete: Disgrace
characters: Lucy Lurie, David Lurie, Melanie Isaacs, Bev Shaw, Petrus
genres: 20th Century, Nobel Prize, Africa, South Africa, Literary Fiction, Novels, Literature, Classics, Fiction, Contemporary
ratings_count: 103169
places: Cape Town, South Africa, Grahamstown
awards: awardedAt: 915177600000
name: Booker Prize, awardedAt: 915177600000
name: National Book Critics Circle Award
category: Fiction, awardedAt: 946713600000
name: Commonwealth Writers' Prize
category: Best Book Overall, awardedAt: 1199174400000
name: The Best of the Booker, awardedAt: 978336000000
name: Dublin Literary Award
publisher: Penguin Books