Call number
305.800 MUK
Collection
Genres
Publication
Archipelago (2018), 152 pages
Description
"A moving, unforgettable tribute to a Tutsi woman who did everything to protect her children from the Rwandan genocide, by the daughter who refuses to let her family's story be forgotten. The story of the author's mother, a fierce, loving woman who for years protected her family from the violence encroaching upon them in pre-genocide Rwanda. Recording her memories of their life together in spare, wrenching prose, Mukasonga preserves her mother's voice in a haunting work of art."--Provided by publisher.
User reviews
LibraryThing member AnnieMod
When I hear Rwanda and Tutsi, my thoughts go to the 1990s - the Civil war and then the genocide of 1994. Somewhere at the back of my mind I had always known that it did not start in the 90s and there were deeper problems somewhere there but I'd be the first to admit that I shied from looking up the
Scholastique Mukasonga was born in 1956 in Rwanda to Tutsi parents. Before she understands enough to really remember life before the change, her family is exiled to another part of the country, losing their way of life and everything they owned. So her connection to the traditions and the past becomes her mother, Stefania. And this slim book is a tribute to the mother - but in a way also a tribute to the Rwanda that never existed for her and to all the mothers.
Writing from the safety of France in 2008 (well - relative safety anyway), long after everyone she is writing is dead, Scholastique Mukasonga tells the story of a displaced culture, of people turned into refugees in their own country. She is not trying to generalize and explain how everyone lived - she recounts her own memories from her family and neighbors. And as with every life, these memories are full of sorrow and laughter, disappointment and hope. Except that she never lets the hope stand - anytime when any hope even tries to glimmer through, she reminds us that noone survives, that all those people got slaughtered in their own homes before they could realize their dreams. She does not need to be explicit or repeat the banal words of death - a small sentence at the end of a chapter is enough to remind you that this world does not exist anymore and will never exist anymore.
I often find memoirs about one's childhood to be too infused with the knowledge of what is coming and where the story leads. And this should have felt the same way - but it does not. It is not the voice of the growing girl but it is not the analytical voice of the mature immigrant either - it manages to stay somewhere in the middle.
This is the first book I read by Mukasonga and it definitely will not be the last - her writing style works in ways I prefer not to explore.
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details - the story next door to me in Yugoslavia was stomach-turning enough to go and look for another one. And then this book just showed up. Scholastique Mukasonga was born in 1956 in Rwanda to Tutsi parents. Before she understands enough to really remember life before the change, her family is exiled to another part of the country, losing their way of life and everything they owned. So her connection to the traditions and the past becomes her mother, Stefania. And this slim book is a tribute to the mother - but in a way also a tribute to the Rwanda that never existed for her and to all the mothers.
Writing from the safety of France in 2008 (well - relative safety anyway), long after everyone she is writing is dead, Scholastique Mukasonga tells the story of a displaced culture, of people turned into refugees in their own country. She is not trying to generalize and explain how everyone lived - she recounts her own memories from her family and neighbors. And as with every life, these memories are full of sorrow and laughter, disappointment and hope. Except that she never lets the hope stand - anytime when any hope even tries to glimmer through, she reminds us that noone survives, that all those people got slaughtered in their own homes before they could realize their dreams. She does not need to be explicit or repeat the banal words of death - a small sentence at the end of a chapter is enough to remind you that this world does not exist anymore and will never exist anymore.
I often find memoirs about one's childhood to be too infused with the knowledge of what is coming and where the story leads. And this should have felt the same way - but it does not. It is not the voice of the growing girl but it is not the analytical voice of the mature immigrant either - it manages to stay somewhere in the middle.
This is the first book I read by Mukasonga and it definitely will not be the last - her writing style works in ways I prefer not to explore.
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LibraryThing member bostonbibliophile
Beautiful, unforgettable, must-read-able. I want to translate this into English myself, I loved it so much.
LibraryThing member Beamis12
A powerfully, strong and loving tribute to an amazing mother. A telling of the effects of colonization, displacement and exile.
"Maybe the Hutu authorities put in charge of the newly-independent Rwanda by the Belgiandps and the Church were hoping the Tutsis of Nyamata would gradually be wiped out
Driven from their home, her mother, tried to make a home where they now found themselves. Trying to keep her children alive, she found places and ways for them to hide. Hid food on escape paths, and had practice drills. She refused to let their culture die in this new, inhospitable place, and this book is full of examples of their daily lives, their practices, what they meant and how they were achieved. Sitting ducks for any violence visited on them, they tried to keep family together, intact. Stephana, her mother was an amazing women, strong and formidable. Strongly believed in education and due to that Mukasonga was in another country when the genocide occurred, where most including her family were murdered.
A wonderful book, wonderful because of the tender, loving way she portrays her mother. Difficult too, because one knows the ending if they know anything about the genocide in Rwanda.
ARC from Edelweiss.
"Maybe the Hutu authorities put in charge of the newly-independent Rwanda by the Belgiandps and the Church were hoping the Tutsis of Nyamata would gradually be wiped out
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by sleeping sickness and famine. In any case, the region they chose to send them to, the Bugesera, seemed inhospitable enough to make those internal exiles survival more than unlikely."Driven from their home, her mother, tried to make a home where they now found themselves. Trying to keep her children alive, she found places and ways for them to hide. Hid food on escape paths, and had practice drills. She refused to let their culture die in this new, inhospitable place, and this book is full of examples of their daily lives, their practices, what they meant and how they were achieved. Sitting ducks for any violence visited on them, they tried to keep family together, intact. Stephana, her mother was an amazing women, strong and formidable. Strongly believed in education and due to that Mukasonga was in another country when the genocide occurred, where most including her family were murdered.
A wonderful book, wonderful because of the tender, loving way she portrays her mother. Difficult too, because one knows the ending if they know anything about the genocide in Rwanda.
ARC from Edelweiss.
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LibraryThing member Dreesie
In this memoir Mukasonga reminisces about her life as a child as a Tutsi in Rwanda. Her family had been exiled to the Bugasera district in the 1960s, and most of this book revolves around how hard her mother worked to keep their traditions alive against all odds. Without a proper courtyard for
Mukasonga was able to flee to Burundi and eventually settled in France. It was there she learned her mother and much of her family were killed in the 1994 genocide.
This book is quite short and spare, which makes it stronger. Mukasonga somehow makes this topic so eloquent--she knows how their lives should have been, and knows her family's traditions. But she also recognizes how much of her knowledge is simply due to her mother's sheltering her children, and working tirelessly to follow the ways of their culture, to educate her children, to keep them steeped in traditional stories, food, drink, and ceremony--despite all obstacles.
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women to convene in, without the cows required for proper ceremonies, without being able to let girls run errands on their own--her mother Stefania does her best to create new spaces, to work around the old traditions, to make sure her children know their roots. Many of their neighbors have the same traditions, but others are from others areas and do not. They all do their best in this new place, struggling to keep their children safe.Mukasonga was able to flee to Burundi and eventually settled in France. It was there she learned her mother and much of her family were killed in the 1994 genocide.
This book is quite short and spare, which makes it stronger. Mukasonga somehow makes this topic so eloquent--she knows how their lives should have been, and knows her family's traditions. But she also recognizes how much of her knowledge is simply due to her mother's sheltering her children, and working tirelessly to follow the ways of their culture, to educate her children, to keep them steeped in traditional stories, food, drink, and ceremony--despite all obstacles.
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LibraryThing member stillatim
Mukasonga's work always flirts with anthropological white-guilt interest stuff, and this time she seems to have gone all in on that. If you're yearning for a more authentic, more true human experience, you will probably find everything here deeply meaningful. If you're looking for what the
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publicity promises (i.e., depiction of an individual), you're likely to be disappointed: Mukasonga's mother certainly seems like a character, but not much else. The restraint shown in dealing with horror is admirable, and so is Stump's translation. But I fear the returns on Mukasonga's books are diminishing. Show Less
Awards
National Book Award (Finalist — Translated Literature — 2019)
Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction (Longlist — 2022)
French-American Foundation Translation Prize (Shortlist — 2019)
ISBN
1939810043 / 9781939810045