Expert lecture: Waiting for Barbarians

"Thinking is not worst........ What is terrible is to have thought."

On 8th and 9th January we had a expect lecture on "Waiting for Barbarians" Novel. The lecture is arrange by our proff. and Head of department Dr. Dilip Barad. R. B. Zala sir has came form the surashtra university for talk.



Waiting for the Barbarians is a novel by the South Africa writer 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.
Coetzee's novel has been deeply influenced by Italian writer Dino Buzzati's novel The Tartar Steppe.

Character: 
  • The Magistrate
  • Barbarian girl
  • Colonel Joll
  • The birdlike girl
  • Warrant officer Madel
Theme of the Novel: 

  • Colonialism
  • Imperialism
  • Interrogation
  • Male sexuality
  • Power
  • Rape
About Novel:

'Waiting For the Barbarians' is all about 'We' and 'Others' or 'We' and 'They'. Means it depends on existential crisis. One's identity and existence depends on Other. Novel raises the question of conflict between civilization and Barbadians. But who decides who is civilized and who are Barbarians? The Barbarians represents a kind of outside threat which seek to trample on the security and safety of the people of the . There is also  the reflection of power relation between Civilized and Barbarians means White and Blacks. Anxiety and fear remains from the beginning of the novel until the end of it.

Comparison with other novel:

Zalasir compare in novel with Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe & A Tempest by Aime cesaire.



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