The Counter-revolutionary

This character appears in "Jump." The third person narrator never gives him a name, but through a detailed account of his past, the reader comes to know him better than perhaps any other character in the book. Currently the man is held in a hotel by government authorities, though the arrangement appears to be voluntary for both parties. He spent his adult life as part of a revolutionary group that worked to destabilize and hopefully overthrow the government of his home county.

The counter-revolutionary was the son of European immigrants to an African nation. At the time of his birth, the country was ruled by a white minority. Sometime prior or during his teen years, the government switched to the control of the black majority. His parents had high hopes for him and expected that he would find a career in some field that had nothing to...