Published in 1974
Two novelettes, one about a scientist and Nam veteran who has a breakdown while doing research for the US government and the other about a South African colonizer who has his revenge on an impudent tribe of Hottentots. Both stories unflinchingly examine the rational western man who sets himself up to defeat/civilize the 'barbarians'. Coetzee reveals inside these men a barbarian much like the ones they imagine they are fighting. Of course this barbarian neither protagonists (if one can really call these men so) recognizes let alone attempts to fight.
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