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Waiting for the Barbarians: A Novel (Penguin Ink)
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Waiting for the Barbarians: A Novel (Penguin Ink) Paperback - 2010

by J. M. Coetzee; C. C. Askew (Illustrator)

A modern classic, this early novel by Nobel Laureate J. M. Coetzee centers on the crisis of conscience and morality of the Magistrate-a loyal servant of the Empire working in a tiny frontier town, doing his best to ignore an inevitable war with the "barbarians."


Summary

A modern classic, this early novel by Nobel Laureate J. M. Coetzee centers on the crisis of conscience and morality of the Magistrate-a loyal servant of the Empire working in a tiny frontier town, doing his best to ignore an inevitable war with the "barbarians."

From the publisher

A modern classic by Nobel Laureate J. M. Coetzee, now a major motion picture starring Robert Pattinson and Johnny Depp For decades the Magistrate has run the affairs of a tiny frontier settlement, ignoring the impending war between the barbarians and the Empire whose servant he is. When interrogation experts arrive, however, he finds himself jolted into sympathy with their victims--until their barbarous treatment of prisoners of war finally pushes him into a quixotic act of rebellion, and thus into imprisonment as an enemy of the state. Waiting for the Barbarians, J. M. Coetzee's third novel, which won the James Tate Black Memorial Prize, is an allegory of the war between oppressor and oppressed. 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 elevate their own survival above justice and decency.

From the jacket flap

For decades the Magistrate has run the affairs of a tiny frontier settlement, ignoring the impending war between the barbarians and the Empire, whose servant he is. But when the interrogation experts arrive, he is jolted into sympathy for the victims, and into a quixotic act of rebellion which lands him in prison.

Details

  • Title Waiting for the Barbarians: A Novel (Penguin Ink)
  • Author J. M. Coetzee; C. C. Askew (Illustrator)
  • Binding Paperback
  • Edition [ Edition: Repri
  • Pages 192
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Penguin Books, E Rutherford, New Jersey, U.S.A.
  • Date 2010-06-29
  • ISBN 9780143116929 / 0143116924
  • Weight 0.4 lbs (0.18 kg)
  • Dimensions 8 x 5 x 0.6 in (20.32 x 12.70 x 1.52 cm)
  • Ages 18 to UP years
  • Grade levels 13 - UP
  • Library of Congress subjects Africa, Allegories
  • Library of Congress Catalog Number 2010514024
  • Dewey Decimal Code FIC

Media reviews

END

About the author

J. M. Coetzee won the Nobel prize for Literature in 2003 and is the author of twenty-three books, which have been translated into many languages. He was the first author to be awarded the Booker Prize twice, first for Life & Times of Michael K and then for Disgrace. A native of South Africa, he now lives in Adelaide, Australia.
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Waiting for the Barbarians : A Novel (Penguin Ink)

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Waiting for the Barbarians : A Novel (Penguin Ink)

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Waiting for the Barbarians : A Novel (Penguin Ink)

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ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
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