Responding to the Pain of Others: Ethics of Witness in Global Testimony by Kimberly Nance is a timely contribution to testimonial studies and a worthy sequel to Nance’s Can Literature Promote Justice: Trauma Narratives and Social Action in Latin American Testimonial Literature (Vanderbilt, 2006). While the earlier volume addressed the relationship between rhetoric and affect in widely studied Latin American testimonios from the 1960’s, 1970’s and 1980’s, the current work explores the potential of contemporary testimonial literature to effect social change. Arguing that there is a future for testimonial writing as a genre capable of promoting social justice, Nance expands her scope to include not only those genres commonly associated with testimonial narratives but also literary ethnographies and works of biofiction, most written after 2005. The volume reflects a global grasp as well, as the stories she examines take place across nations and continents: Honduras, Kenya, the U.S. Mexico-border, Croatia, Los Angeles. Her decision to include authors who appeal to young adult readers is an inspired one, as is the inclusion of works by lesser known authors (Elvia Alvarado, Benjamin Alire Sáenz) along with works by popular writers (Dave Eggers, Peter Dickinson). While Nance anchors many of her observations to well-known testimonial and trauma theory (e.g. Jean-François Lyotard, Susan Sontag, and John Beverley, the volume is free of jargon and eminently readable.

Dianna Niebylski, University of Illinois at Chicago

Presenting diverse testimonial texts from around the globe, Responding to the Pain ofOthers, attends to the expansive ethical dimensions of a proliferating genre. Kimberly Nance, building upon her ground-breaking study Can Literature Promote Justice?, astutely reveals narrative and rhetorical strategies of persuasion in deliberative testimonios, works that seek engaged social action from reader-witnesses. From a wide range of divergent case studies—including traditional life stories, fictionalized works that incorporate magical realism and the fantastic, even YA novels—Nance identifies the convergence of compelling narratives, attractive to readers, that cajole and demand pragmatic responses. Clearly written and persuasively argued, Responding to the Pain ofOthers revitalizes testimonio studies by drawing attention to underlying processes intended to foster alliances with readers.

Janis Be Breckenridge, Professor of Hispanic Studies, Whitman College

In her latest book, Kimberly Nance continues to expand upon her deep knowledge of testimonios, marked by an essential shift to a transnational framework and offering an in-depth, thoughtful, and examined engagement of power-laden audience receptions to this political life writing form. Nance offers a particularly nuanced engagement with the deliberative strand of testimonio while refusing to offer romanticized account of the texts and fiercely insisting upon their radical potential.

Patricia DeRocher, Champlain College