How to trust the word of an extraordinary story's author

DelMio.com (MCT) - In a commentary in Australia's Sydney Morning Herald, the journalist Malcolm Knox beautifully describes the value of the memoir, despite times when certain authors lie or when publishers fail to check facts.

Knox knows the fraudulent side of memoir-writing. He uncovered fabrications in Norma Khouri's 2003 international bestseller "Forbidden Love," about the killing of a woman in Jordan as representative of horrors in pockets of the Muslim world.

Now filmmaker Anna Broinowski has a new documentary out, titled "Forbidden Lie$," on the story behind Khouri.

As for Knox: With the Khouri expose behind him, he was asked to verify the story of a Sudanese refugee, Cola Bilkuei, for a book called "Cola's Journey," just out in Australia.

Knox did the kind of background checking that should be routine: He spoke with other boy soldiers, as well as a priest and a lawyer who knew Cola in Africa. He checked with the Australian government, which did homework on Cola before issuing his first passport.

Yet as Knox acknowledges, certain things depended on Cola's word, and Cola certainly had everything to gain by getting a book published.

Wrote Knox: "Some will ask why any author's word should be trusted. My answer is that if we take such a hard line, we will deprive ourselves of all oral history, of every story that is one person's recollection.

"If we did that, winnowing history to what is documented on official records, swathes of human experience would be lost."

"Cola's Journey" has not been published yet in the United States, but scores of books are available on the same topic. Two good ones: "God Grew Tired of Us," a memoir by John Bul Dau, and "No Room at the Table," by Donald Dunson, a missionary priest who spent more than a year documenting the plight of children in Africa and other impoverished countries.

The experience of reading the real-life experiences of these children is life-altering, in that it's hard to imagine ever being indifferent again. In the case of Africa, exaggeration is hardly the fear. The greater danger is that not enough is said and written in a way that truly awakens us and makes us care.

Like our music and our films, the books we read reflect our values as a culture. If we're obsessed about the lives of stars, that says something about who we are and that swath of history we choose to preserve. Conversely, if we ignore the greatest world injustices, that, too, speaks to our collective values and priorities. The danger, in this case, is not errors in every last detail. The danger is not knowing enough to get the big picture - with knowledge being the first step toward understanding that can then lead to a call for action and social justice.

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ABOUT THE WRITER

Diane Evans is a former Knight Ridder columnist and is now president of DelMio.com, a new interactive online magazine on books for writers and readers.

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© 2008, DelMio.com

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

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© 2008, REPLACE TAG!

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.