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Waiting for the Barbarians

by J. M. Coetzee

Waiting for the Barbarians Cover

ISBN13: 9780140061109
ISBN10: 014006110x
Condition: Standard
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Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

For decades the Magistrate has been a loyal servant of the Empire, running the affairs of a tiny frontier settlement and ignoring the impending war with the barbarians. When interrogation experts arrive, however, he witnesses the Empire's cruel and unjust treatment of prisoners of war. Jolted into sympathy for their victims, he commits a quixotic act of rebellion that brands him an enemy of the state.

J. M. Coetzee's prize-winning novel is a startling allegory of the war between opressor and opressed. The Magistrate is not simply a man living through a crisis of conscience in an obscure place in remote times; his situation is that of all men living in unbearable complicity with regimes that ignore justice and decency.

Review:

"[A] distinguished piece of fiction....[Its] power of historical immediacy gives the novel its thrust, its larger and, if you wish, 'universal' value." The New York Times

Review:

"I have known few authors who can evoke such a wilderness in the heart of man. He is an artist of a weight and depth that put him beyond ordinary comparisons....Coetzee knows the elusive terror of Kafka." Bernard Levin, Sunday Times (London)

Review:

"The novel moves between claustrophobic enclosures and arid, exquisitely rendered open spaces that reveal treacherous trap-doors....The book keeps us on edge, uneasy." Walter Clemons, Newsweek

Review:

"The book makes for compelling reading, largely due to the successful use of the present tense throughout and the vivid presentation of unfolding events." World Literature Today

Synopsis:

Moving and powerful, this book presents the dark tale of an aging magistrate in an African frontier settlement, who finds himself becoming increasingly sympathetic toward the indigenous "barbarians" that the colonial empire's forces brutalize.

About the Author

J. M. Coetzee was born in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1940. His many literary prizes include the 2003 Nobel Prize for Literature, Lannan Award for Fiction, the CNA Prize, the Booker Prize, the Jerusalem Prize, and the Irish Times International Fiction Prize.

What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 2 comments:
prashanth_k_murthy, April 23, 2008 (view all comments by prashanth_k_murthy)
No other tale of crime against humanity has been told with such intensity..Every page is a heart wrenching experience ...as if your soul is stirred a hundred times over.A timeless masterpiece from the author i admire the most.
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(3 of 12 readers found this comment helpful)
JaneEyre, March 14, 2008 (view all comments by JaneEyre)
A powerful book that develops its central character's moral ambiguity and complicity thoughtfully.
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(2 of 7 readers found this comment helpful)
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780140061109
Author:
Coetzee, J. M.
Publisher:
Penguin Books
Location:
Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England ;
Subject:
General
Subject:
Literary
Subject:
Africa
Subject:
Fiction
Subject:
Allegories
Subject:
Colonial administrators
Subject:
Colonial administrators -- Africa -- Fiction.
Subject:
Africa -- Fiction
Copyright:
Edition Number:
Reprint ed.
Publication Date:
April 1982
Binding:
Paperback
Grade Level:
General/trade
Language:
English
Illustrations:
Y
Pages:
160
Dimensions:
7.86x5.02x.45 in. .29 lbs.

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