Book review: After the War - shadows of a revolution
By Maheen Sabeeh Published: February 9, 2014
Image from Hari Kunzru's Stalkers.
The story is told from the view of Vasantha, who drives Father Perera
and his sidekick, Patrick, from England to Jaffna for a meeting with a
military major. The meeting is a ruse while the actual mission is to
find proof on the major who once beat up a woman and then left her for
dead in his hometown.
Photographer Justin Jin's Zone of Absolute Discomfort photo essays are
visually breathtaking. In the harshest of climate, they document the
Russian Arctic and focus on silent faces and greedy governments, as
well as the consequences of disastrous environmental policies.
Poet Rowan Ricardo Philllips contributes to this edition with Pax
Americana, a poem that leaves you feeling vulnerable as he ends with
words that ring in your mind long-after: "Thus the poem, your one true
savior, loves you."
In an excellent, grim, non-fictive essay, British journalist Lindsey
Hilsum describes living through genocide as it first began in Rwanda
(1994) in
The Rainy Season. She returns to Rwanda after a decade and heads to
the capital city of Kigali, where the façade of modernity is simply a
clue to all that is left unsaid. In the essay, Lindsey says that the
genocide first began in 1994 when extremists from Rwanda's majority
ethnic group, the Hutus, targeted the minority group, the Tutsis. The
failure of the United Nations made way for the Rwandan Patriotic Front
(RPF) that consisted of Tutsis, to end genocide and seize power. The
RPF, writes Lindsey, also killed thousands of Hutus, a fact that is
omitted in the country's version of its history. No Rwandan can speak
the words Hutu or Tutsi or Twa without invoking the wrath of the law
called genocide ideology.
The narrative of Rwanda, through the eyes of those who survived
genocide, is filled with a sense of loss, grief and even hope.
This is particularly evident in Rose Birizihiza's story, a survivor of
multiple violations, beginning from spousal rape to the murder of her
husband and toddler daughter and sexual slavery for three months. She
comes out strong, only to face life head-on as she founds a community
for women who have been raped.
In Stalkers, Hari Kunzru reports on the forgotten Chernobyl nuclear
accident of 1986 and how the abandoned space in Ukraine is simply
known as 'Zone'. Kunzru sets the narrative apart with a courageous and
eerie tone.
With this edition of Granta: 125, the subject of war will be hard to
banish to the dark cornerstones of our minds. It is uncomfortable,
ugly and will possibly rob you of your sleep, for a little while
anyway, and maybe that is its biggest success.
The magazine edition is available at The Last Word for Rs1,250. Maheen
Sabeeh is a freelance journalist. She tweets @maheensabeeh
Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, February 9th, 2014.
http://www.google.ca/gwt/x?gl=CA&hl=en-CA&u=http://tribune.com.pk/story/667448/book-review-after-the-war-shadows-of-a-revolution/&q=book+review+war+shadows+revolution
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