num_pages: 152
description: 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 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 ignore justice and decency.
language: English
title: Waiting for the Barbarians
titlecomplete: Waiting for the Barbarians
characters: The Magistrate
genres: Historical Fiction, Nobel Prize, Africa, South Africa, Literary Fiction, Novels, Literature, Classics, Fiction, African Literature
ratings_count: 30995
awards: awardedAt: 315561600000
name: James Tait Black Memorial Prize
category: Fiction, awardedAt: 410256000000
name: Philip K. Dick Award, awardedAt: 315561600000
name: CNA Literary Award, awardedAt: 347184000000
name: Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize
publisher: Penguin Books