Waiting for the Barbarians is an allegory of oppressor and oppressed. Not just a man living th rough a crisis of conscience in an obscure place in remote times．the Magistrate iS an analogue 0f all men living in complicity with regimes that ignore justice and decency．

‘J．M．Coetzee’S vision goes to the nerve centre of being What he finds there is more than、most people wiII everknow about themselves，and he conveys it with a brilliant writer's mastery of tension and elegance’”For decades the Magistrate has run the affairs of a finy frontier settlement,ignoring the impending wa r between the barbarians and the Empire，whose servant he iS．But when the interrogation experts arrive，he iS iolted into sympathy with the victims and into a quixotic act of rebellion which lands him in prison branded as an enemy、of the state．