Category: Waiting For The Barbarians

Waiting for the Barbarians is a novel written by JM Coetzee which has strong themes of Post-Colonialism. To begin, an understanding over what post-colonialism is specifically in literature needs to be elaborated. A simple definition most would define post-colonialism as an issue happening after colonialism in a country and its ramifications. Interestingly, the definition has…

Based on the 1980 novel of the same name, Waiting for the Barbarians follows an unnamed imperial magistrate (Mark Rylance) as he becomes increasingly disillusioned with the similarly-unnamed empire he serves. This disillusionment begins when Colonel Joll (Johnny Depp) enters his frontier town under the orders of the empire and begins to antagonise the eponymous…

The main protagonist of the novel is a nameless civil servant, who serves as magistrate to a frontier settlement owned by a nameless empire. The Empire, a vague colonialist regime, sets itself in opposition to the “barbarians,” mysterious nomadic peoples who live in the wild lands bordering the Empire. The magistrate is looking forward to…