The Past Ahead: A Novel

GILBERT GATORE

GILBERT GATORE was born in Rwanda in 1981. Forced to flee his country with his family in 1994, he found refuge in what was then Zaire and came to France in 1997. During the civil war, he kept a diary that was later lost during his escape. In an attempt to re-create what he had written, he started to write The Past Ahead. He is a graduate of the Department of Political Science in Lille and of the HEC (École des Hautes Études Commerciales) in Paris and is a two-time winner of the University Short Story Prize. The Past Ahead, his first novel, was short-listed for the Prix Goncourt du Premier Roman in France and won the Ouest-France Prize in 2008. This novel is volume one of Figures de la vie impossible. Born in Indonesia and raised in the Netherlands, MARJOLIJN DE JAGER has been living in the United States since 1958. After a forty-year career teaching French language and literature, during which she worked as a part-time literary translator, she now translates full-time (since 1999), both from French and Dutch, with a special focus on Francophone African literature. Her numerous literary prizes include an NEA Translation Grant (2005) and the Distinguished Member Award from the African Literature Association (2011). She lives in Connecticut with her husband and three cats. Her website is mdejager.com. ...