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Osarobo
Apollo, whose real name is never revealed, is one of the African refugees whom Richard gets to know over the course his visits to the shelter. He is soft-spoken and visibly traumatized young man. The first time Richard interviews Apollo, he observes that the young man “looks exactly the way he always imagined [the Greek god] Apollo,” and he refers to him as such for the remainder of the novel. Apollo is a Tuareg, a semi-nomadic group of peoples who are an ethnic minority in the deserts of North Africa, where Apollo grew up. Apollo was born during wartime and doesn’t know whether his parents are alive or dead. He was enslaved for much of his life, and he wonders whether he was perhaps stolen from his parents as a youth. Richard does what he can to support Apollo, offering him paid work when he can. At the end of the novel, Apollo is one of the refugees who come to live with Richard in his home after the German government declares it has no legal responsibility to accommodate the asylum seekers.
Apollo Quotes in Go, Went, Gone
The Go, Went, Gone quotes below are all either spoken by Apollo or refer to Apollo. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 13 Quotes
He lays the sheet of paper, already covered from top to bottom with German vocabulary words, on the bed beside him; above his head, a list of irregular verbs hangs on the wall, Gehen, ging, gegangen: go, went, gone.
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Now, too, he is experiencing such a moment; he is reminded that one person’s vantage point is just as valid as another’s, and in seeing, there is no right, no wrong.
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Chapter 29 Quotes
How many times, he wonders, must a person relearn everything he knows, rediscovering it over and over, and how many coverings must be torn away before he’s finally able to truly grasp things, to understand them to the bone? Is a human lifetime long enough? His lifetime, or anyone else’s?
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Chapter 30 Quotes
They tell the stories in the evening.
They find their way by these stories?
Yes.
They find it by remembering?
Yes.
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Apollo Character Timeline in Go, Went, Gone
The timeline below shows where the character Apollo appears in Go, Went, Gone. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 13
...arrives and escorts Richard upstairs, to a different room, where Richard interviews a young man (Apollo)—a boy, really—who tells Richard he is from Niger. When Richard asks if the boy has...
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...Richard ends his interview with the boy “who looks exactly the way [Richard] always imagined Apollo,” not long after—the conversations are far more exhausting than Richard ever imagined they could be.
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Chapter 25
Apollo races through the door, interrupting the class. He starts speaking loudly and quickly to the...
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Chapter 28
On his way out later, Richard runs into Apollo and asks him if he’d like to do some paid work around his house this...
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Chapter 29
...everyone commiserates about the impossible situation the refugees face. Thomas jokes that Richard should give Apollo a scan with a Geiger counter before he comes in—Niger, where Apollo is from, has...
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Chapter 30
Apollo comes over that weekend and helps Richard bail out his boat, which is full of...
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Chapter 35
...has been instructed to be as harsh as possible in its rulings. Later, Richard advises Apollo to emphasize to immigration officials that he, as a Tuareg, is a “persecuted minority” in...
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Chapter 38
One day, in the week leading up to the fourth Sunday of Advent, Richard asks Apollo how he can afford a cell phone and internet service. Apollo explains that he doesn’t...
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Chapter 43
...before New Year’s Eve, Richard heads to the facility to bring birthday presents to Rashid, Apollo, and Ithemba. (He recently learned from Osarobo that all the refugees who don’t have documents...
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Chapter 48
...water, though a large crowd of sympathizers is assembled outside. Richard sees Tristan, Yaya, Moussa, Apollo, Khalil, Mohamed, Zair, and Ithemba gathered around a fire barrel, warming their hands. Then Richard...
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Chapter 54
...and Moussa in his library. Khalil and Mohamed and Ithemba sleep in the guest room. Apollo and Karon, meanwhile, sleep in the music room. Richard gets his house officially recognized as...
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