Nobel novel turned into film

2005-02-07 16:40

Johannesburg - Nobel-winning South African author JM Coetzee produced one of the most poignant post apartheid literary works when he penned Disgrace in 1999.

Five years later as he marks his 65th birthday, the novel that explored white guilt, shame and fear and won him his second Booker Prize in 1999, is being turned into a feature film.

"Disgrace" portrays the dilemma of a university professor who seeks refuge with his daughter in the countryside having had to forfeit his career after a brief fling with one of his students.

But life on the isolated farm does not bring the anticipated tranquillity and Professor David Lurie finds himself in the pitfall of life in a transforming society where a once dominant white minority class is making way for blacks.

British actor Ralph Fiennes has been assigned the lead role in the film adaptation of the book by filmmakers Steve Jacobs and Anna Moticelli of Australia, the country that Coetzee now calls home.

The film is the first attempt to bring one of his works - essentially a portrayal of the complexities and consequences of interracial relationships, violent crime, sexuality, personal sacrifice and turmoil - to the big screen.

The notoriously media shy - some even say reclusive - author and academic has reportedly given the nod to the film that is to be shot in South Africa later this year.

Coetzee took the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003.

His achievement earned him high praise at home and abroad.

But it also stirred controversy among some black South Africans outraged by his portrayal of whites as victims and "black men as rapists" with ruling party officials saying they "recognised his achievement without condoning" his novel. - Sapa-dpa

- SAPA