"Children, only animals live entirely in the Here and Now. Only
nature knows neither memory nor history. But man- let me offer
you a definition- is the story-telling animal. Wherever he goes
he wants to leave behind not a chaotic wake, not an empty space,
but the comforting marker-buoys and trail signs of stories. He
has to go on telling stories, he has to keep making them up. As
long as there's a story, it's all right. Even in his last
moments, it's said, in the split second of a fatal fall- or when
he's about to drown- he sees, passing before him, the story of
his whole life."  In the novels we have read, story telling is a
mechanism of narration of both fact and fiction. With Tom
Crick's definition of man in mind, how should we critically read
these postcolonial, story-rich novels? Is it possible to
decipher the more valid his-stories from those that are created
for the purpose of enriching the author's intent? For example,
Yvonne Vera's concoction of rituals are nothing but fictitious
stories, but one cou