Review of the novel Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee

J. M. Coetzee's Booker prize-winning novel is a devastating tale of a man who discovers himself disgraced many times over. Living the latter years of his middle age in post-apartheid South Africa, Professor Lurie does little outside his comfort and means. But a brief affair with a university student throws the bored and dulled man's plain existence off it's course. Coetzee sets a brilliantly drawn character within a modern world, illuminating a dazzlingly clear view of his country's, and the world's, searing political and personal struggles.