Translated to Arabic, "Waiting for the Barbarians " a novel of oppression/colonialism and the horrors and burdens endured by the colonized. By Nobel Laureate J.M.Coetzee (b. 1940). For decades the Magistrate has run the affairs of a tiny frontier settlement, ignoring the impending war between the barbarians and his Empire. But when the interrogation experts arrive, he is jolted into sympathy with the victims and an act of rebellion which sees him imprisoned as an enemy of the state.