In writing an allegory that is barely an allegory and a trilogy of novels that are often not novels, Coetzee appears to have made his own literary displacement total.
Esther studied botany and biochemistry, and ended up serving Cokes to arms dealers in Delhi’s Hotel Shangri-La. She is a station holder, occupied and rootless. Welcome to India Shining.
Nearly twenty years ago, in a village in the western Indian state of Rajasthan, a young woman called Roop Kanwar was burned to death at her husband's funeral pyre.