Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature
Abstract
This article revisits Gatore’s novel, The past ahead, in analyzing the idea of witnessing. Some critics estimate that the novel does not make a clear distinction between the perpetrator and the victim. While recognizing the danger, the article extends the debate on the notion of the human beyond the categories of “perpetrator” and “victim”. Without excusing acts of the former, the author of this article affirms that the perpetrator and the victim belong to the same humanity. While they remain extreme and inexcusable, crime against humanity and genocides are not a contingent acts, which opens a meditation on the fragility of the human and allows to read any sign that announces mass violence.
Recommended Citation
Karegeye, Jean-Pierre
(2015)
"Du témoin et de l’humain chez Gilbert Gatore : Le passé
devant soi,"
Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature: Vol. 85:
No.
1, Article 6.
Available at:
https://crossworks.holycross.edu/pf/vol85/iss1/6
Included in
Africana Studies Commons, African Languages and Societies Commons, Fiction Commons, French and Francophone Language and Literature Commons, Holocaust and Genocide Studies Commons