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SA novelist Coetzee wins Booker

South African novelist J M Coetzee has fought off five fellow authors from around the world to land Britain's premier literary award for Disgrace.

The Booker Prize, worth 21,000 pounds (35,000 US dollars) to the winner, guarantees instant literary acclaim and a place in the international bestseller lists.

''This remains the ultimate prize to win in the English language,'' Coetzee, chosen from a final shortlist of six, said in a message to the award ceremony.

It was the second time he had landed the Booker award. In 1983 he won it for Life and Times of Michael K.

Coetzee, a professor of general literature at the University of Cape Town, has authored seven novels -- one the most recent being The Master of Petersburg.

Disgrace is set in South Africa and examines dichotomies both in personal relationships and in the unaccountability of one culture towards another. The story focuses on a middle-aged and twice-divorced professor of romantic poetry who gets into an impulsive affair with his student. The professor, David Lurie, leaves the university in Cape Town (the native place of Coetzee), goes to live with his daughter in her farm, but is driven away from her after a savage attack on them.

Among the contenders for the prize was Indian novelist Anita Desai.

Reuters

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Entertainment Booker double for Coetzee

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