J.M. Coetzee

The Lives of Animals

Elizabeth Costello is invited to Appleton College's annual literary seminar as a guest lecturer. Despite her stature as a celebrated novelist, she opts not to give lectures on literature or writing, but on animal cruelty.

Waiting for the Barbarians

At an isolated frontier outpost, a colonial magistrate suffers a crisis of conscience when an army colonel arrives looking to interrogate the locals about an impending uprising, using cruel tactics that horrify the magistrate.

Disgrace

Disgrace is the story of a South African professor of English who loses everything: his reputation, his job, his peace of mind, his good looks, his dreams of artistic success, and finally even his ability to protect his cherished daughter. After having an affair with a student, he moves to the Eastern Cape, where he gets caught up in a mess of post-apartheid politics.

Dust

A South African spinster murders her father after he rapes the wife of the black foreman for his plantation.