John Maxwell Coetzee was born in 1940 in Cape Town, South Africa. He attended a Catholic school and then the University of Cape Town.
After three years working as a computer programmer in England, he completed a PhD on Samuel Beckett at the University of Texas, Austin, then spent a further three years teaching English Literature at the State University of New York, in Buffalo.
In 1972 he joined the University of Cape Town, publishing his first novel two years later. He was made a professor in 1984 and remained at Cape Town, occupying various chairs, until his retirement in 2002.
He published six further novels before ‘Disgrace’ appeared in 1999, for which he won a second Booker Prize, followed by the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003.
He had moved to Australia by that point, becoming an Australian citizen in 2006. He remains a Professorial Research Fellow at the University of Adelaide, having established there the J.M. Coetzee Centre for Creative Practice. His most recent literary work was published in 2023.
‘Disgrace’ features David Lurie, a former Professor of Modern Languages, now reduced to teaching in the Communications Faculty of the fictional ‘Cape Technical University’ in Cape Town.
Lurie, twice-divorced, enjoys a series of sexual adventures. As the novel begins, he is occupied with a call girl, Soraya, but ultimately begins a relationship with Melanie Isaacs, one of his students.
This ends badly. He is confronted, first by Melanie’s boyfriend, then by her father. Lurie is called before a university committee but, while freely admitting his guilt, he is unwilling to express contrition.
He leaves the university under a cloud, staying for a while with his daughter, Lucy, who owns a smallholding with dog kennels in the Eastern Cape. Lucy was formerly cohabiting with her lesbian partner, but is now alone. Her nearest neighbour is Petrus, a black man she has been employing, but who is now setting up as an independent farmer.
One day, three black men visit Lucy’s property, while Lurie is present and Petrus away. They rape Lucy and attempt to murder Lurie. This attack opens up a vast gulf in the father-daughter relationship, as they react in vastly different ways, Lurie seeking justice; Lucy seeming passive and resigned.
Lurie briefly returns home to Cape Town and sees Melanie perform, leading to a second confrontation with her boyfriend. He visits her father, attempting an apology, but this is contaminated by his desire for Melanie’s sister.
After talking with Melanie’s father, he awkwardly abases himself before her mother and sister, kneeling and touching his forehead to the floor.
Returning to Lucy’s smallholding, he learns that Lucy is pregnant from the rape and that the younger of the three, Pollux, is a relative of Petrus, now living on his farm. Lurie catches Pollux watching Lucy through the bathroom window, striking him to the ground.
Lucy remains unwilling to pursue a criminal investigation, and is equally unwilling to have an abortion. It seems likely that she will resign herself to marrying the polygamous Petrus, so protecting herself from Pollux and other potential marauders. She is willing to sign over her land if Petrus will take the unborn child into his family.
For much of the narrative, after losing his job, Lurie is struggling to write ‘Byron in Italy’, an opera of sorts, featuring the poet’s former mistress and his ghost. He finally relinquishes this task, deeming it beyond his musical capacities.
Lurie has also been volunteering with Lucy’s friend Bev Shaw, who runs a backwoods veterinary service. (Almost mechanically, he sleeps with her.)
He assists in the euthanasia of numerous unwanted dogs, subsequently cremating them at the hospital incinerator. At the novel’s close, he finally surrenders to Bev’s ministrations a hound he has made into a provisional pet.
There is a fairly obvious parallel between Lurie’s inappropriate relationship with Melanie Isaacs and the sexual violation of his daughter by three black men.
This raises awkward questions about the power dynamics between male and female, black and white. And potential parallels with the treatment of dogs.
But there are no clear answers. Lurie clearly doesn’t have them, and it is open to question whether Lucy’s way forward is any more promising. Readers will respond differently according to their prejudices.
The novel is beautifully written, in spare prose deployed with grim precision. But it offers a fairly bleak perspective on entrenched racial and sexual tensions in the country that Coetzee was shortly to leave for good.
Outstanding, yes, though I’m not quite sure it deserves its colossal reputation.
TD
November 2025
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