J. M. Coetzee

Big Picture, Small Picture: Context for J.M. Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians

Big Picture, Small Picture: Context for J.M. Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians

On October 26, South African author J.M. Coetzee’s novel Waiting for the Barbarians is published. The unnamed narrator, an imperial magistrate stationed in a colonial settlement on the outskirts of the unspecified “Empire,” enjoys the languorous ease of his privileged position.

A Q&A Between Former Ploughshares Contributors Ethan Rutherford and Paul Yoon

A Q&A Between Former Ploughshares Contributors Ethan Rutherford and Paul Yoon

This guest post was contributed by Ethan Rutherford. —Andrew Ladd, blog editor. I recently moved, and while unpacking my books I stumbled upon an old issue of Ploughshares—Fall 2007, guest edited by Andrea Barrett. I don’t always keep my old literary journals, but I’ve kept this one because it included a story by a good…