The Road Builder by Nicholas Hershenow. Plus book jacket summary, and author biography. The following are intended to enrich your conversation and help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for approaching this novel. Much of this novel revolves around communication.
Characters speak in different languages, making communication difficult.
Even those who speak the same language somehow have trouble connecting. Kate is an enigma. In Ngemba, history merges with myth and story, so much so that it s hard to discern hard, cold facts. Some say The Road Builder is a love story, others that it is many love stories. Hershenow spent time in Zaire with the Peace Corps, an experience that fueled the novel.