Point of View

Although the novel presents the perspectives of multiple characters, it is not ultimately an omniscient third-person point-of-view because the truth of the events narrated themselves can never be established. Of course, the novel presents a broad array of perspectives from the elderly Eldares couple, Maritha and Mariko, to the Ruler’s Ministers and to Kamiti and Nyawira themselves. However, the narrator—who is never identified—is careful never to allow any one character to fully control the narrative or to define exactly what happens and how.

This is true in the beginning of the novel, in which the narrator presents a series of rumors about the Ruler’s illness. The very first sentence of the novel negates or rejects any authoritative or narrative authority: “There were many theories about the strange illness of the second Ruler of the Free Republic of Aburiria, but the most...