Waiting for the Barbarians
A Novel
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4.1 • 57 Ratings
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
NOW A FILM STARRING MARK RYLANCE, JOHNNY DEPP, AND ROBERT PATTINSON
A modern classic by Nobel Laureate J.M. Coetzee. His latest novel, The Schooldays of Jesus, is now available from Viking. Late Essays: 2006-2016 will be available January 2018.
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.
Customer Reviews
Waiting for Understanding
The book started out really strong, but come chapter two it became rife with sexual content that overpowered what the story was trying to say rather than help it. The ending wasn’t a let down, but it leaves the sense that the readers are waiting too. For what I don’t know.