Abstract
This chapter introduces the project Rwanda: écrire par devoir de mémoire (Rwanda: Writing by Duty of Memory) and the genesis and aims of the monograph which deals with literary representations of the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. It underlines the plural, participatory nature of the project and the value of such a mode of writing for the representation of collective trauma.
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Notes
- 1.
A Shona word which refers to the armed uprising against the colonialists in Zimbabwe.
- 2.
Dr. Kayitesi was a survivor of the genocide in Rwanda, where, at the age of 16, she lost both her parents. In 2009, she published her testimony, Demain ma vie—enfants chefs de famille dans le Rwanda d’après. She died of a brain hemorrhage at age 37 on 23 June 2015.
- 3.
From a conference paper read by Berthe Kayitesi, entitled ‘Testimonies, Trauma and Resilience: Learning and Coping with Survivors from the Genocide against the Tutsi of Rwanda’, at the conference Rwanda 20 Years After: Memory, Justice and Recovery in the Shadow of Genocide, held 28–30 March 2014, at Weber State University, Utah.
- 4.
« Peut-on se relever seul, sans saisir la main tendue, s’appuyer sur une épaule amie ? Je ne le crois pas » (Rurangwa 2006: 95).
- 5.
« Peut-être que c’est dans le naturel de l’homme, cette pudeur qui veut que l’on s’appuie sur les épaules de l’autre, que l’autre nous donne la main et nous essuie les larmes pour nous soulager de notre blessure ? » (Djedanoum 2000: 11).
- 6.
- 7.
- 8.
Geoffrey Hartman uses the term ‘intellectual witness’ to refer to those who did not experience an event (such as the Shoah) first-hand, but who feel compelled to bear witness to it. The function of the intellectual is, then, to provide a ‘witness for the witness’, to ‘actively receive words that reflect the darkness of the event’ (Hartman 1998: 37, 41). According to Hartman, this notion includes both witnesses who have contact with eyewitnesses, or what he calls the ‘first generation’, and those who see the Shoah not as merely a past event but as a ‘contemporary issue requiring an intensity of representation close to eyewitness report’(1998: 38).
- 9.
A type of narrative or account which is created through dialogue and sharing.
- 10.
I borrow this term from Catherine Coquio, quoted in Viviane Azarian (2011).
- 11.
Refer to notes 2 and 3.
- 12.
For more on the reader’s involvement, consult Kenneth Harrow (2005: 40).
- 13.
In a collaborative project on the meaning of genocide memorials, which led us as a research team to visit all the districts and listen to testimonies, I found that many of the cultural and historical elements of Rwanda and the genocide that I had encountered by reading literary texts were confirmed by the stories we heard. These realities therefore do inform my analysis of the texts, but my focus is on how stories are told rather than on the social and historical content of the stories.
- 14.
I use the term ‘story’ in a very broad sense, referring mostly to the act of narrating an event, in the sense ascribed to it by Paul Ricœur (1983: 116) in his discussion of ‘mise en intrigue’ through the process of mimesis I (prefiguration), mimesis II (configuration), and mimesis III (refiguration). I intend no connotation regarding the truthfulness or fictional value of the accounts in question to be derived from the term ‘story’.
- 15.
- 16.
The following texts were published as part of this endeavor:
Murambi: le livre des ossements (2000) by Boubacar Boris Diop from Senegal;
L’aîné des orphelins (2000) by the Guinean writer Tierno Monénembo;
Murekatete (2000) by Monique Ilboudo from Burkina Faso;
La phalène des collines (2002) by Koulsy Lamko from Chad;
L’ombre d’Imana: voyages jusqu’au bout du Rwanda (2000) by Véronique Tadjo from Côte d’Ivoire;
Moisson de crânes: textes pour le Rwanda (2000) by Abdourahman A. Waberi from Djibouti;
Nyamirambo! (2000), a poetry anthology by Nocky Djedanoum from Chad;
Le génocide des Tutsi expliqué à un étranger (2000), an essay by exiled Rwandan Jean-Marie Vianney Rurangwa; and
France-Rwanda: Les coulisses du génocide, témoignage d’un rescapé (2001), a testimony by genocide survivor Vénuste Kayimahe.
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de Beer, AM. (2020). Introduction: Leaning on the Shoulder of Another. In: Sharing the Burden of Stories from the Tutsi Genocide. Palgrave Studies in Cultural Heritage and Conflict. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42093-2_1
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