United Nations Secretary-General Stephen Lewis
by Rob - January 24th, 2010.Filed under: FlashForward.
I received an email today from a person in South Korea who had just read FlashForward, my novel which is the basis for the ABC TV series of the same name, pointing out that I use the names of many real people in the novel, but for some reason changed the name of the UN Secretary-General from the real 2009 incumbent, Ban ki-moon (“a hero in Korea”), to Stephen Lewis, a name she took to be fictitious; she expressed fear that this would offend Korean readers.
My response:
Many thanks for your kind words. Please note that I wrote the novel FlashForward in 1998 (and it was published in 1999); at that time Kofi Annan was Secretary-General of the United Nations, having assumed office in 1997.
Since no Secretary-General has ever served more than two five-year terms, it was clear Annan would no longer be holding that role in 2009, when the novel was set, and, lacking a flashforward of my own, I had no way of knowing that Ban Ki-moon would become Secretary General in January 2007 — and so I proposed a likely candidate.
Stephen Lewis, the person I named as Secretary-General in FlashForward, is a real person, and just as Ban is a hero to many South Koreans, Lewis is a hero to many of my fellow Canadians.
Lewis was a distinguished Canadian politician (leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party from 1970-1978), was Canada’s ambassador to the United Nations (1984-1988), and was deputy director of UNICEF (1995-1999). From 2001 to 2006 he was United Nations Special Envoy for AIDS/HIV in Africa. His name has been suggested repeatedly for the Nobel Peace Prize.
I invite you to read more about him and his work.
Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
and WakeWatchWonder.com
January 24th, 2010 at 5:09 pm
How come you used the real 2009 Pope's name, then? I'm not falling for this.
January 25th, 2010 at 12:40 am
After his stint as UN Envoy on AIDS, would Lewis be interested if offered the post after Mr. Ban is done?
At any rate, I should drop a donation on his foundation sooner than later.
January 25th, 2010 at 9:38 pm
Go look at a 1999 copy of FlashForward, Chuk; you'll see the Pope is named Benedict XVI there. For that matter, go look at a copy of my 1995 novel The Terminal Experiment; I also name the current Pope correctly there.
How? I did it by looking at all previous Pope names, finding one for which the last usage was honorable and which seemed overdue for reuse, and incremented the number by one. :)