J.M. Coetzee is South African by birth and upbringing, so there will be influences that can be traced to his background in his writing.

I was at a loss as well regarding the setting of the story.

From the description, it reads to me as if it is set in central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, etc) rather than anywhere in Africa.

But yeah, one of the things I liked about it is that it doesn't pertain to any setting/situation that we know of. Almost Science Fiction in that regard. It could be taking place on another, similar planet.

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I'm guessing that he didn't want his book to be seen as an attack just a specific empire and defending a specific indigenous people, so he intentionally kept it vague.

Yeah, I got the impression they were some sort of asiatic people such as the Mongols or whatever, not to mention the, uh, mention of winter. I thought, well, could it be in some atypical part of Africa, perhaps in the north because of the mention of the waterbuck?

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