The Go-Away Bird - Softcover

FitzGerald

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007317387 ISBN 13: 9780007317387

Publisher: The Borough Press, 2011

Synopsis

A powerful, heart-wrenching story of friendship and love

‘This is a story about me, Clementine, and my friends: a panther called Levi, a pelican called Lola and a turtle called Jimmy. It is about dragons and goblins, my Daddy the King, my Mummy the Queen and Prince Pio my brother. At least that is the way I tell it sometimes when thoughts of the blood, the machetes, the swamp and the fear of Uncle Leonard become too hard to describe.

But that was all before I met Ashley, wonderful Ashley. Not that he would ever call himself wonderful in a million years. When he tells you his story you will see what I mean...’

Ashley Bolt – A middle-aged, loner for whom teaching singing is the only escape from his London life. In an attempt to forget a violent past he turns to self-harming but this provides little comfort.

Clementine Habimana – A Rwandan child refugee who witnesses the 1994 genocide at first-hand and lives to tell her story. Delivered into the hands of an abusive uncle in the UK, Clementine remains undeterred in her hope for a brighter future.

When their two worlds collide, nothing is ever the same again...

About this title

Review:

‘FitzGerald writes about Africa vividly, painting interior scenes and green tropical landscapes that jump out of the page. He may do for Rwanda something of what Alexander McCall Smith's lady detective series has done for Botswana...it is a funny, musical, hopeful and poignant story.’ CAPE TIMES

‘It is hard to believe this is Warren FitzGerald's first novel, so sure is his hand and so powerful the book.’ MAIL & GUARDIAN

From the Author:

Tell us a little about the book’s plot.
Ashley is a 39-year-old English man living in a rough housing estate in central London in 1994, dealing with his stresses by self-harming and trying to make ends meet by teaching singing to a bizarre string of clients. Clementine is a ten year old Rwandan girl, who witnesses the murder of her family as genocide devastates her beautiful country. She flees and these two disparate lives that seem destined to run parallel eventually collide offering both a kind of salvation they never imagined possible.

What was your inspiration for the book?
I wanted to write about the culture and cycle of abstract problems and self abuse we seem to have evolved in the 'West' in the absence of real problems of life and death, which are dealt with as much now as in 1994 in many 'developing' nations.

Part of the novel is set during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. How did you go about researching this part of the book?
I was not in a position to go to Rwanda before writing the novel so I had to rely on some great books, such as A Time for Machetes by Jean Hatzfeld and the internet. It was only after the book was near publication that I was able to go and see the country I had written about and meet some of the survivors of the genocide; it was a truly humbling and awe inspiring journey.

One of the narratives is given by a young Rwandan girl. As a writer of adult fiction how did you go about writing from a child’s perspective?
We've all been children. I think it's vital in everyday life to try and remember what it's like to be a child, no matter how hard experience tries to beat those feelings and values from us, because it is as a child that we have the most clarity and purity, the absence of prejudice and inhibition. I apply such a practice to my writing whenever necessary.

You have recently spent a lot of time in Rwanda on voluntary projects. Has this experience changed your perception of the country?
The genocide was 16 years ago (this month in fact), and although we should never forget it, that Rwanda is long gone. The government and the people are working hard to move forward. The young generation particularly seem to be forging great relationships which cross tribal barriers, being 'Rwandans' rather than 'Hutu' and ''Tutsi,' - a disparity which the European colonizers recklessly inflamed in the early 1900s. The country now is one of the safest in Africa, the people are gentle. They could also teach us a thing or two about sustainability: the streets are spotlessly clean, plastic bags are banned and people recycle and reuse to an impressively high degree.

About this edition

• Publisher: The Borough Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0007317387
• ISBN 13: 9780007317387
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288