Kimberly A. Nance is professor of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at Illinois State University.

Responding to the Pain of Others: Ethics of Witness in Global Testimony by Kimberly Nance is a timely contribution to testimonial studies and a worthy sequel to Nance’s Can Literature Promote Justice: Trauma Narratives and Social Action in Latin American Testimonial Literature (Vanderbilt, 2006). While the earlier volume addressed the relationship between rhetoric and affect in widely studied Latin American testimonios from the 1960’s, 1970’s and 1980’s, the current work explores the potential of contemporary testimonial literature to effect social change. Arguing that there is a future for testimonial writing as a genre capable of promoting social justice, Nance expands her scope to include not only those genres commonly associated with testimonial narratives but also literary ethnographies and works of biofiction, most written after 2005. The volume reflects a global grasp as well, as the stories she examines take place across nations and continents: Honduras, Kenya, the U.S. Mexico-border, Croatia, Los Angeles. Her decision to include authors who appeal to young adult readers is an inspired one, as is the inclusion of works by lesser known authors (Elvia Alvarado, Benjamin Alire Sáenz) along with works by popular writers (Dave Eggers, Peter Dickinson). While Nance anchors many of her observations to well-known testimonial and trauma theory (e.g. Jean-François Lyotard, Susan Sontag, and John Beverley, the volume is free of jargon and eminently readable.

• Introduction Chapter 1: Better Off Going Out on the Town? Addressing the Witness in Elvia Alvarado’s Don’t Be Afraid, GringoChapter 2: Choose Your Own Testimonial Adventure? Witnessing Alternative Futures in Peter Dickinson’s AK Chapter 3: Border Testimonies, Restricted Crossings: Questioning the Act of Witness in Benjamin Alire Sáenz’s “Exile: El Paso, Texas” and “Alligator Park” Chapter 4: Hundreds of Bodies on Two Continents, Telling a Single Story: Witnessing the Testimonial Uncanny in Clea Koff’s The Bone Woman: A Forensic Anthropologist’s Search for Truth in the Mass Graves of Rwanda, Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo Chapter 5: Use Beginning, Middle, and End: Witness and the Work of Reintegration in Delia Jarrett-Macauley’s Moses, Citizen & Me Chapter 6: Survivors Tell the Stories that the Sympathizers Want: Countering the Comfort of Lost Boy Narratives in What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng Chapter 7: You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught: Ethics Lessons for Beginners in Uwem Akpan’s “What Language Is That?” Chapter 8: My Life Is Based on a Real Story: Recursive Witness in Alicia Partnoy’s “Rosa, I Disowned You” and “Disclaimer Intraducible: My Life / Is Based / on a Real Story” Conclusion: Deliberative Testimonio and the Reactivation of Human Rights Discourse

Kimberly A. Nance is professor of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at Illinois State University.

Responding to the Pain of Others: Ethics of Witness in Global Testimony by Kimberly Nance is a timely contribution to testimonial studies and a worthy sequel to Nance’s Can Literature Promote Justice: Trauma Narratives and Social Action in Latin American Testimonial Literature (Vanderbilt, 2006). While the earlier volume addressed the relationship between rhetoric and affect in widely studied Latin American testimonios from the 1960’s, 1970’s and 1980’s, the current work explores the potential of contemporary testimonial literature to effect social change. Arguing that there is a future for testimonial writing as a genre capable of promoting social justice, Nance expands her scope to include not only those genres commonly associated with testimonial narratives but also literary ethnographies and works of biofiction, most written after 2005. The volume reflects a global grasp as well, as the stories she examines take place across nations and continents: Honduras, Kenya, the U.S. Mexico-border, Croatia, Los Angeles. Her decision to include authors who appeal to young adult readers is an inspired one, as is the inclusion of works by lesser known authors (Elvia Alvarado, Benjamin Alire Sáenz) along with works by popular writers (Dave Eggers, Peter Dickinson). While Nance anchors many of her observations to well-known testimonial and trauma theory (e.g. Jean-François Lyotard, Susan Sontag, and John Beverley, the volume is free of jargon and eminently readable.

• Introduction Chapter 1: Better Off Going Out on the Town? Addressing the Witness in Elvia Alvarado’s Don’t Be Afraid, GringoChapter 2: Choose Your Own Testimonial Adventure? Witnessing Alternative Futures in Peter Dickinson’s AK Chapter 3: Border Testimonies, Restricted Crossings: Questioning the Act of Witness in Benjamin Alire Sáenz’s “Exile: El Paso, Texas” and “Alligator Park” Chapter 4: Hundreds of Bodies on Two Continents, Telling a Single Story: Witnessing the Testimonial Uncanny in Clea Koff’s The Bone Woman: A Forensic Anthropologist’s Search for Truth in the Mass Graves of Rwanda, Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo Chapter 5: Use Beginning, Middle, and End: Witness and the Work of Reintegration in Delia Jarrett-Macauley’s Moses, Citizen & Me Chapter 6: Survivors Tell the Stories that the Sympathizers Want: Countering the Comfort of Lost Boy Narratives in What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng Chapter 7: You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught: Ethics Lessons for Beginners in Uwem Akpan’s “What Language Is That?” Chapter 8: My Life Is Based on a Real Story: Recursive Witness in Alicia Partnoy’s “Rosa, I Disowned You” and “Disclaimer Intraducible: My Life / Is Based / on a Real Story” Conclusion: Deliberative Testimonio and the Reactivation of Human Rights Discourse

Kimberly A. Nance is professor of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at Illinois State University.

Responding to the Pain of Others: Ethics of Witness in Global Testimony by Kimberly Nance is a timely contribution to testimonial studies and a worthy sequel to Nance’s Can Literature Promote Justice: Trauma Narratives and Social Action in Latin American Testimonial Literature (Vanderbilt, 2006). While the earlier volume addressed the relationship between rhetoric and affect in widely studied Latin American testimonios from the 1960’s, 1970’s and 1980’s, the current work explores the potential of contemporary testimonial literature to effect social change. Arguing that there is a future for testimonial writing as a genre capable of promoting social justice, Nance expands her scope to include not only those genres commonly associated with testimonial narratives but also literary ethnographies and works of biofiction, most written after 2005. The volume reflects a global grasp as well, as the stories she examines take place across nations and continents: Honduras, Kenya, the U.S. Mexico-border, Croatia, Los Angeles. Her decision to include authors who appeal to young adult readers is an inspired one, as is the inclusion of works by lesser known authors (Elvia Alvarado, Benjamin Alire Sáenz) along with works by popular writers (Dave Eggers, Peter Dickinson). While Nance anchors many of her observations to well-known testimonial and trauma theory (e.g. Jean-François Lyotard, Susan Sontag, and John Beverley, the volume is free of jargon and eminently readable.

• Introduction Chapter 1: Better Off Going Out on the Town? Addressing the Witness in Elvia Alvarado’s Don’t Be Afraid, GringoChapter 2: Choose Your Own Testimonial Adventure? Witnessing Alternative Futures in Peter Dickinson’s AK Chapter 3: Border Testimonies, Restricted Crossings: Questioning the Act of Witness in Benjamin Alire Sáenz’s “Exile: El Paso, Texas” and “Alligator Park” Chapter 4: Hundreds of Bodies on Two Continents, Telling a Single Story: Witnessing the Testimonial Uncanny in Clea Koff’s The Bone Woman: A Forensic Anthropologist’s Search for Truth in the Mass Graves of Rwanda, Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo Chapter 5: Use Beginning, Middle, and End: Witness and the Work of Reintegration in Delia Jarrett-Macauley’s Moses, Citizen & Me Chapter 6: Survivors Tell the Stories that the Sympathizers Want: Countering the Comfort of Lost Boy Narratives in What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng Chapter 7: You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught: Ethics Lessons for Beginners in Uwem Akpan’s “What Language Is That?” Chapter 8: My Life Is Based on a Real Story: Recursive Witness in Alicia Partnoy’s “Rosa, I Disowned You” and “Disclaimer Intraducible: My Life / Is Based / on a Real Story” Conclusion: Deliberative Testimonio and the Reactivation of Human Rights Discourse