Waiting for the Barbarians
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.
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2recommend
7mentions
6people
2010–2026years
43% recommend57% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- JM Coetzee - all, but Disgrace and Waiting for the Barbarians are good starting points.
- I love Don Quixote obviously. I find the symbolism to be something I can regularly latch onto as a way to describe things in my life. On the same note, I reread Waiting for the Barbarians by Coetzee for the same reason.
- Waiting for the Barbarians is a great start. It is a good read + it works as a great analogy that can be brought up when talking to people who let fear run their lives.
- I have associated "Waiting for the Barbarians" with people who think they know better showing up somewhere to conquer. I guess that could also be UFOs.
- A related literary work, at least depending on how you think about 'related' with regard to literature/poetry: Waiting for the Barbarians by JM Coetzee.
- Some of the books in my 2020 to be read basket:
Cultural Amnesia by Clive James
Exhalation by Ted Chiang
Silver, Sword & Stone: Three Crucibles in the Latin American Story by Maria Arana
The World As I Found It by Bruce Duffy
Alice And Bob Meet The Wall Of Fire edited by Thomas Lin
Masscult and Midcult by Dwight Macdonald
Big Bang by David Bowman
White Noise by Don DeLillo
The Wizard and the Prophet by Charles C. Mann
A House for Mr. Biwas by V. S. Naipaul
A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace
On The Abolition Of All Political Parties by Simone Weil
Collected Stories by Bruno Schulz
On Being The Right Size by J. B. S. Haldane
Bela Tarr, The Time After by Jacques Ranciere
La Vida Breve by Juan Carlos Onetti
The Clown by Heinrich Boll
Memoirs From Beyond The Grave by Francois-Rene De Chateubriand
Blood Dark by Louis Guilloux
The Liberal Imagination by Lionel Trilling
Cuentos Completos by Juan Carlos Onetti
Balcony In The Forest by Julien Gracq
Historia De España Contada Para Escépticos by Juan Eslava Galán
Diez Lecciones Sobre Los Clásicos by Piero Boitani
Waiting For The Barbarians by J. M. Coetzee
97,196 Words by Emmanuel Carrere
Brief Interviews With Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace
El Zafarrancho Aquel De Via Merulana by Carlo Emilio Gadda
