The presentation of the chapter 1:

PLACE: the scene is set in Lagos, Nigeria, in and outside a private house.
CHARACTERS: Sade (12) and Femi (10) Solaja are brother and sister. The children’s father: Folarin Solaja is an outspoken journalist who writes articles against the government. He works for Speak a weekly newspaper in English. The mother is a nurse in a hospital Uncle Tunde is the father’s eldest brother and he is a lawyer. Mama Buki is the mother’s sister. Joseph is a guard.

CRIME: At the beginning of the story, the mother is murdered; she is shot dead outside her house. She was murdered in revenge for an article written by her husband in which he criticized the Nigerian government. In other words, the mother was murdered because her husband told the truth.

THE ARTICLE: In his latest article, Folarin Solaja denounced: -The lack of freedom of speech in Nigeria. -The lack of the right to protest. -The corruption of the military regime. -The social inequality (the people in power can send their children to the best school abroad while most Nigerian children get no education at all).

THE TITLE: Here, we start to understand the title of the book: the other side of truth seems to be death. This was something we could imagine when we saw the book cover for the first time: the illustration evokes death as we can see a hand with blood dripping from it.

THE DEBATE: The father and uncle Tunde has a debate in the study. The father defends his right to tell the truth while his brother to convince him to stop risking his life and his children’s by criticizing the regime.

THE DECISION: Eventually, they decide to send the children to London to protect them because the people who killed the mother can kill them too. This is a real risk since Sade received an anonymous phone call in which threats was expressed. The father will join his children in England later.

REAL FACTS: Two real people are mentioned: -General