I was highly surprised but also highly grateful that Gatore began The Past Ahead with this warning:
"Dear stranger, welcome to this narrative. I should warn you that if, before you take one step, you feel the need to perceive the indistinct line that separates fact from fiction, memory from imagination; if logic and meaning mean one and the same thing to you; and lastly, if anticipation is the basis for your interest, you may well find this journey unbearable" (page 1)
I found the postmodernist style for this book very fitting for its content. The translator at the beginning labeled it a novel, but somehow it's much different than any novel I've ever read before-as if it deserves a genre all to itself. It's Isaro who wrote this introduction and who oddly enough replaced her first draft which originally said, "Dear Stranger, welcome to this narrative whose only survivor will be you." The reason why she scrapped this was because she felt it would be too violent for readers and therefore changed it to the introduction we presently have. Fortunately, this makes much more sense to those who have read the back cover and found that Gatore, born in Rwanda 1981, kept a diary during the civil war. In the hurry of escaping, Gatore lost the book and in a panic began writing down all he could remember from it. The introduction is just saying that his novel still contains truth regardless that the events in the original diary(what's closest to reality) may differ slightly from the events in the rewritten diary (the book we have today).
This may be why Niko is portrayed as a deaf mute that cannot speak for himself. He is the living, breathing version of the book-diary-itself. There is more to them than we'll ever know-Niko, because his communication is severely limited, and the book, because of what was lost in the original.
"Dear stranger, welcome to this narrative. I should warn you that if, before you take one step, you feel the need to perceive the indistinct line that separates fact from fiction, memory from imagination; if logic and meaning mean one and the same thing to you; and lastly, if anticipation is the basis for your interest, you may well find this journey unbearable" (page 1)
I found the postmodernist style for this book very fitting for its content. The translator at the beginning labeled it a novel, but somehow it's much different than any novel I've ever read before-as if it deserves a genre all to itself. It's Isaro who wrote this introduction and who oddly enough replaced her first draft which originally said, "Dear Stranger, welcome to this narrative whose only survivor will be you." The reason why she scrapped this was because she felt it would be too violent for readers and therefore changed it to the introduction we presently have. Fortunately, this makes much more sense to those who have read the back cover and found that Gatore, born in Rwanda 1981, kept a diary during the civil war. In the hurry of escaping, Gatore lost the book and in a panic began writing down all he could remember from it. The introduction is just saying that his novel still contains truth regardless that the events in the original diary(what's closest to reality) may differ slightly from the events in the rewritten diary (the book we have today).
This may be why Niko is portrayed as a deaf mute that cannot speak for himself. He is the living, breathing version of the book-diary-itself. There is more to them than we'll ever know-Niko, because his communication is severely limited, and the book, because of what was lost in the original.
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