Waiting for the Barbarians
First edition cover
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| Author | J. M. Coetzee |
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| Country | South Africa |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Novel |
| Publisher | Secker & Warburg |
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Publication date
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27 October 1980 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 156 pp (hardback edition) |
| ISBN | (hardback edition) |
| OCLC | 7742021 |
| 823 19 | |
| LC Class | PR9369.3.C58 W3 1980 |
Waiting for the Barbarians is a novel by the South African-born Nobel laureate J. M. Coetzee. First published in 1980, it was chosen by Penguin for its series Great Books of the 20th Century and won both the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize for fiction. American composer Philip Glass has also written an opera of the same name based on the book which premiered in September 2005 at Theater Erfurt, Germany.
Coetzee took the title from the poem "Waiting for the Barbarians" by the Greek poet Constantine P. Cavafy.
The story is narrated in the first person by the unnamed magistrate of a small colonial town that exists as the territorial frontier of "the Empire". The Magistrate's rather peaceful existence comes to an end with the Empire's declaration of a state of emergency and with the deployment of the Third Bureau—special forces of the Empire—due to rumours that the area's indigenous people, called "barbarians" by the colonists, might be preparing to attack the town. Consequently, the Third Bureau conducts an expedition into the land beyond the frontier. Led by a sinister Colonel Joll, the Third Bureau captures a number of barbarians, brings them back to town, tortures them, kills some of them, and leaves for the capital in order to prepare a larger campaign.
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