and Friction, amongst other places, and her journalism and non-fiction have appeared in The Nation, Le Monde diplomatique, Zeit Online, and Africa Is a Country, among other venues.
Abbas teaches fiction writing in the department of Comparative Media Studies/Writing at MIT.
At Lit Hub she tagged eight "favorite books on borders, border towns and border crossings of all kinds: physical as well as social crossings, cosmic escapades, and gender-defying odysseys." One title on the list:
J.M. Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians (1980)Read about the other entries on the list.
An unnamed colonial magistrate sits waiting in a remote outpost located on the border of The Empire. Beyond this frontier, the “barbarians,”the territory’s indigenous people, live. The magistrate, who narrates the story, recounts the events. When the Empire declares a state of emergency, officials from the “Third Bureau” arrive to conduct torture interrogations on the “barbarians” whom they accuse of fomenting rebellion. As things unravel, the magistrate finds himself questioning the very Empire he’s charged with defending. Coetzee’s novel is one of the most brilliant and haunting depictions of the colonial frontier in literary fiction.
Waiting for the Barbarians is among Anjan Sundaram's six top works about people trapped in oppressive systems.
--Marshal Zeringue
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