However, ‘ Disgrace ‘ goes further by bringing out the psychological nuances of the victims without deifying them. The beauty of this fictional work lies in crafting the emotions of individuals in the backdrop of their political situation. Coetzee’s work ‘Disgrace’ is an attempt to tell the implication of such violence in the lives of ordinary, white and black citizens of South Africa. The brutal conflicts and violence that haunted the country during the 1990s had its roots in the colonial legacy of apartheid. It led to white privilege and relegated the blacks as ‘second class’ citizens. The suppression and exploitation had created fragmented identities coupled with uneven development. Since Disgrace Coetzee’s work has moved away from fiction to other forms – essays, opinion pieces and memoirs, or a mixture of all three in a fictional framework.The postcolonial period in South Africa saw the end of apartheid and the beginning of an escalating civil war and violence. The first Waiting for the Barbarians, is a parable about the use of falsely imagined enemies for social control The Life and Times of Michael K is set in a dystopian South Africa of the 1970s under civil war and his third masterwork, Disgrace, is about a university lecturer adjusting to the new South African political climate. He has published over twenty books, but three in particular have had a big impact. He emigrated to Australia in 2003 where he has an honorary position at the University of Adelaide.
He returned to South Africa to take up various positions at the University of Cape Town. He was also nominated for the 2009 Booker for his autobiographical novel, Summertime.īorn in 1940 Coetzee studied at the University of Cape Town and the University of Texas, after which he taught at the State University of New York.
He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003.
He was the first writer to win the Booker Prize twice – for the Life and Times of Michael K in 1983 and for Disgrace in 1999. His early work in particular was received as a response to the era of apartheid in South Africa with Coetzee occupying an interim position in a very particular branch of postcolonial writing. Coetzee is one of the most highly respected and frequently studied contemporary writers.
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