On Mourning and Exile: Looking Back at Rwanda

Join Rwandan author Scholastique Muksonga as she explores ideas of mourning and exile in the wake of the Rwandan genocide.

Of her most recent book, “Igifu,” the New York Times writes that it “depicts the lives of Rwanda’s Tutsis from their exile in the 1960s to the genocide of the ’90s. These stories follow the broad strokes of the author’s own life, though, unlike Mukasonga’s prior books “Cockroaches” and “The Barefoot Woman,” they are less explicitly autobiographical. Instead, she mediates the personal through fable to convey the sense of a collective past . . . The devastation in Mukasonga’s stories is only amplified by the short story form. “Igifu” is notably slim, as though to suggest all that still hasn’t been told.”

Scholastique will be joined in conversation by Dr. Timothy Longman of Boston University.

Presented by Roger Williams University Library

Co-Sponsor:SAR United States

Associate Sponsors: the African Studies Association and Archipelago Books