A sobering novel set in Cape Town and on a remote farm in the Eastern Cape. Friendless and twice-divorced, David Lurie loses his professorship as a result of an affair with a student, and is further broken down when he and his daughter are viciously attacked by three intruders. Coetzee's spare, but multi-layered language conveys the devastating realities of racial politics, alienation and suffering in post-apartheid South Africa. This book made Coetzee the only author to win the Booker Prize twice; the first one was awarded for "The Life and Times of Michael K" (SAF17).  (SAF89, $15.00)

Best of the Booker