In this PowerPoint Presentation I have done a Comparative study of an Italian Novel Il Deserto Dei Tartari by Dino Buzzati with Waiting for The Barbarians by J. M. Coetzee.

1. A Comparative Study of
Dino Buzzati’s Il deserto dei
Tartari and J.M.
Coetzee’s Waiting for the
Barbarians
Prepared By : Sima Rathod
Paper – 14 The African Literature
Email Id : rsima144@gmail.com
Submitted To : Smt. S. B. Gardi Department of English, MKBU

2. Table of Content:
• About the author
• About the text
• Major Characters of The Novels
• Comparison of the Novels
• So What ?

3. About the Author of WFB
• John Maxwell Coetzee, J.M.Coetzee
a South African novelist, critic, and
translator noted for his novels about
the effects of colonization. According to
Great Writers Inspire, every novel is
carefully structured, every sentence
carefully crafted, every word
carefully selected. All information is
disclosed (or not), it seems, for a
reason, a reason that is
nevertheless allusive and tricky to
pin down. If there is a general
feeling that a reader takes from a
Coetzee novel, it would be safe to
say that it is not one of resolution --
indeed, most often we find
ourselves asking, 'Why?'
•

4. About the Novel
• For decades the Magistrate has been a loyal
servant of the Empire, running the affairs of
a tiny frontier settlement and ignoring the
impending war with the barbarians. When
interrogation experts arrive, however, he
witnesses the Empire's cruel and unjust
treatment of prisoners of war. Jolted into
sympathy for their victims, he commits a
quixotic act of rebellion that brands him an
enemy of the state.
J. M. Coetzee's prize-winning novel is a
startling allegory of the war between
oppressor and oppressed. The Magistrate
is not simply a man living through a crisis
of conscience in an obscure place in
remote times; his situation is that of all
men living in unbearable complicity with
regimes that ignore justice and decency.

5. About the Author of Il deserto dei Tartari
The Tartar Steppe
• Dino Buzzati, (born Oct. 16,
1906, Belluno, Italy—died
Jan. 28, 1972, Rome),was
an Italian journalist,
dramatist, short-story writer,
and novelist, internationally
known for his fiction and
plays. His worldwide fame is
mostly due to his novel The
Tartar Steppe, although he
is also known for his well-
received collections of short
stories.

6. About the Novel Il deserto dei Tartari
• Often likened to Kafka's The Castle,
The Tartar Steppe is both a scathing
critique of military life and a meditation
on the human thirst for glory. It tells of
young Giovanni Drogo, who is posted
to a distant fort overlooking the vast
Tartar steppe. Although not intending
to stay, Giovanni suddenly finds that
years have passed, as, almost without
his noticing, he has come to share the
others' wait for a foreign invasion that
never happens.

7. Comparison of Both the Novels:
-Omniscient Narrator
- Drogo - an army officer
- The threat of an invasion from
the northern desert.
-Political claustrophobia
and insecurity.
-Kingdom which is ‘almost’ a
mirror-image of Italy in
mid-1800.
-No civilian population.
- Drogo- Drugs
- Monti – Mountain
- First Person Narrative
- Magistrate - a civilian officer
- The threat of an invasion
from the northern desert.
-Political claustrophobia
and insecurity.
-Ambiguity about the
location.
-Less realistic and more
enigmatic.
- Civilian Population.
- -Joll – to play around
Il deserto dei Tartari (1940) Waiting for Barbarians
(1980)

8. So What ?
• I found DARGO more realistic in comparison of
Magistrate .
• Drago’s death was meaningful, he was in constant
quest of finding meaning of his existence but at the
end he found meaninglessness. His death was
Intellectual.
• I found magistrate coward , he had power still he
was unable to do anything and at the end of the
novel he was even not able to write about the
history that he lived .

9. References
• Davies, Dominic . Great Writers Inspire. n.d. 27 April 2021
<https://writersinspire.org/content/jm-coetzee-1>.
• HOWE, IRVING . Archive The New York Times . 18 April 1982. 27 April
2021
<https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/11/02/home/coetz
ee-barbarians.html>.
• Pugliese, Cristiana . "Waiting on the Border: a Comparative Study of Dino
Buzzati’s Il deserto dei Tartari and J.M. Coetzee’s Waiting for the
Barbarians." African Journals Online 14.2 (2013): 22.
• Keene, Frances . The New York Times. 24 August 1952. 27 April 2021
<https://www.nytimes.com/1952/08/24/archives/the-useless-waiting-the-
tartar-steppe-by-dino-buzzati-translated.html>.
• Nobel Prize.Org. n.d. Nobel Media. 27 April 2021
<https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2003/coetzee/facts/>.
• SARNA, NAVTEJ . The Hindu. 3 April 2010. 27 April 2021
<https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/navtej_sarna/Second-
Thoughts-In-the-twilight-zone-with-Coetzee/article16123607.ece>.
• The Editors of Encyclopaedia . Britanica. 5 February 2021. 27 April 2021
<https://www.britannica.com/biography/J-M-Coetzee>.
•