Disgrace by J.M.Coetzee: postcolonial modification of campus novel

The novel Disgrace by the South African writer J.M.Coetzee is analyzed as the narration where genre clichés of the campus novel (topos, plot, idyllic pathos) are reinterpreted in the light of postcolonial reality which determines general tragic mood of the novel. The white characters (paradoxically - subalterns for Coetzee) overcome this by means of kenosis. Among clichés of the postcolonial consciousness defamiliarized in Disgrace are the author's attempts to eschew clear-cut indication of race: violence is portrayed not as racially determined but as an ubiquitous condition. Disgrace is still another prove that a modern campus novel ceases to be just a field of professional and postmodern self-reflection, but turns into an important cultural event with the universal meaning.