In Disgrace (1999), J.M. Coetzee enters intimately into the mind of a twice-divorced academic, David Lurie, as he wrestles with the impediments that societal standards place on the fulfillment of his sexual desire. Fired from his position in Cape Town because of sexual misconduct with a student, the professor goes to live with his daughter, Lucy. Lurie, a specialist in Romantic literature, is catapulted into a rural South Africa much different from the scenes described in Wordsworth. Crime, poverty, and rape fill the landscape of Salem, and Lurie and his daughter must salvage what they can of their relationship after violence strikes.
Disgrace was the first work of South African...
