Waiting for the Barbarians is a 1980 novel written by John Maxwell Coetzee, a South African and Australian novelist who was winner of the 2003 Nobel Prize for Literature. Penguin chose the book for its Great Books of the 20th Century series, and the novel won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize for fiction. Waiting for the Barbarians was influenced by the 1904 poem of the same name written by the Greek poet Constantine Cavafy and was adapted into a film in 2019.

Through a first-person narrative, the novel describes the experiences of the magistrate of an unnamed frontier outpost of “the Empire.” Though the Empire remains unnamed, the story is understood as an allegory for South Africa’s Nationalist government. A cautionary tale of what happens when the pursuit of conquest becomes the central operating motivation of any empire, the novel is a strong indictment against imperialism. The Magistrate’s narrative confronts the concept of what actually constitutes barbarism. While the Empire positions its enemies as barbarians, the novel makes clear that the true barbarians are the representatives of the Empire who conduct themselves with the utmost brutality.

This guide references the Kindle edition of the novel published in 2017.

Content Warning: This guide contains references to war, sexual assault, and torture that appear in the source text.

Plot Summary

The novel begins with a description of the sunglasses of Colonel Joll, a visiting military representative of the Empire. He arrives at the settlement armed with emergency powers for the purpose of leading a campaign against the Indigenous nomadic peoples of the desert that surrounds the town. Joll in his sunglasses presents a sinister presence and establishes the ominous tone of the novel. 

The Magistrate of the town, who serves as the first-person narrator of the novel, is suspicious of Joll from the outset. As Joll begins to conduct his nefarious operations, which include the torture and murder of suspected enemy prisoners, the Magistrate recognizes that the quiet and peaceful life to which he has become accustomed at the settlement is about to end. At first, the Magistrate is unwilling to accept that this cruelty has come to his doorstep, and for some time, he tries to do what he can to deny that it is happening. Eventually, his conscience wins, and he positions himself as an opponent to Joll though the Magistrate has far less power.

One prisoner becomes a central focus of the Magistrate: a girl who has been maimed and partially blinded by Joll and his men. Her torture took place in front of her own father, who was forced to observe the atrocity before he was himself killed. The Magistrate becomes drawn to the girl, who has been reduced to begging for basic necessities from the residents of the settlement. The Magistrate uses the ruse that begging in town is against the law as a means of convincing her to take up residence in his apartment. The Magistrate offers her boarding and a job as a maid, which the girl takes out of necessity.

The Magistrate forms a relationship with the girl, one that seems destined to become sexual. However, the Magistrate regards the girl as a victim, and he is generally obsessed with finding out the details of what happened to her during her interrogation. Eventually, the Magistrate realizes that as some measure of rectifying the wrongs committed against her, he should return her to her people. He assembles a group of three men and equips the outfit with provisions for a journey through the desert at the tail end of winter. He notifies the girl of his plan, and the outfit sets off on a two-week journey that culminates in the Magistrate meeting directly with a leader of the nomadic people and returning the girl to them.

When the outfit returns to the settlement, the civil guards immediately arrest and imprison the Magistrate. At first, he feels elated that he has effectively been freed from his allegiance to the Empire, which by this time has become a repulsive presence to him. A younger man named Mandel is the chief warrant officer and the man in charge of the Magistrate’s imprisonment and ensuing torture. As time goes on, the Magistrate realizes that legal notions, such as the right to a fair trial, are simple abstractions, and at the hands of Mandel, he is deprived of food, water, clean living quarters, and other basic necessities. He is beaten, and his imprisonment culminates in a public humiliation in which he is ordered to wear a woman’s smock while he stands with his head in a noose. He is subsequently hog-tied and suspended above the ground until he screams for mercy.

By the time his punishment is concluded, the ashamed magistrate has lost everything, not the least of which is his dignified standing within the town. He survives as a beggar, and preys upon the sympathies of some of the women in town as his means of survival. All the while, the situation in the town has become increasingly ominous. The fear of the supposed barbarian invasion grows into hysteria, and the town residents turn on each other. Some folks plan to leave while others without the means to leave grow resentful of them. Joll’s army has been away from the settlement pursuing the Indigenous nomadic peoples, and the longer they are gone, the more consternation grows in the town.

One day, a rider appears on horseback. As he nears the gates of the settlement, it becomes clear that the rider is a soldier of Joll’s army who is dead and who has been propped up on the horse. This causes panic in the town. The civil guard pilfers the settlement, and hastily abandons the town. Some of the townspeople follow suit but face certain disaster, as the road back to the capital of the Empire is treacherous and winter is fast approaching.

After the exodus of Mandel and his men, the Magistrate assumes his former role as the leader of the town; however, this time he is not a representative of the Empire. He keeps the citizens of the town focused on preparing for the approaching winter, and while the threat of an invasion by the nomadic people still lingers, there is no longer the same level of hysteria. One night, a panicking soldier visits the Magistrate. It is one of Joll’s men. The Magistrate realizes that Joll is outside, and he has sent the soldier in for any supplies that can be pilfered from the town. The Magistrate sees Joll in a carriage and notices that Joll has lost his sunglasses. They make eye contact, and the Magistrate mouths a message to Joll. Residents of the town have awakened and pelt Joll’s carriage with rocks. Just before leaving the Magistrate’s apartment, the soldier reveals to the Magistrate the details of what happened to Joll’s army. As they pursued the nomadic people, the latter retreated and lured the army into the mountains. The nomadic people used various guerilla tactics to disrupt the army but ultimately, most of Joll’s men died due to exposure and starvation.

After Joll makes his retreat, the town is officially cut off from the Empire. The preparations for winter continue. The Magistrate begins writing a history of his settlement as a message for future generations who will discover its ruins. The novel concludes with The Magistrate watching children building a snowman. A sense of happiness comes over him, but it is countered by the inner awareness that he is as lost now as he ever was.