Disgrace

Cheaper in another edition — €0.95 at Label Emmaüs Disgrâce · French edition · See that edition →

At fifty-two, Professor David Lurie is divorced, filled with desire, but lacking in passion. An affair with one of his students leaves him jobless, shunned by his friends, and ridiculed by his ex-wife. He retreats to his daughter Lucy's isolated smallholding, where a brief visit becomes an extended stay as he tries to find meaning from the one remaining relationship. David attempts to relate to Lucy and to a society with new racial complexities are disrupted by an afternoon of violence that shakes all of his beliefs and threatens to destroy his daughter. In this wry, visceral, yet strangely tender novel, Coetzee once again tells "truths [that] cut to the bone" (The New York Times Book Review).

The cheapest new copy of Disgrace is £8.99 at LoveReading. Prices checked 14 Nov 2026

In other languages

Other editions

More by J. M. Coetzee

More by J. M. Coetzee