“Waiting for the barbarians” by J. M. Coetzee
Introduction
John Maxwell Coetzee’s “Waiting for the barbarians” chronicles the sufferings and mysteries that occurred in a small colonial town. The town existed as the territorial boundary of the empire in which the narrator was a resident. An unknown magistrate narrates the story in the first person position by explaining the terrific events that took place in their town. The magistrate was a loyal servant of the Empire and his attempts were to ignore an unavoidable conflict with the “barbarians.” This implies that the novel was inspired by the brutal apartheid system in Cotetzees’ ...