In 2000, the publication of ten texts marked the completion of a two-year project entitled Le Devoir de mémoire [The Duty of Memory], which had brought together ten writers from across Africa to write in response to the Rwandan genocide. This article looks at how the project was posited from the outset as a specifically African response, setting this in the context of older problems of voice, self-representation and the renegotiation of miswritten histories in the postcolonial context. This aspect of the project is made all the more urgent by the actuality of the genocide, and the period of residence the writers spent in Rwanda in 1998. This article argues that the project succeeded in creating a space in which Africa as a whole is made part of the genocide, and vice versa, by raising complex questions of responsibility and by drawing on familiar themes in modern African writing, namely history, memory and identity; exile and dislocation.
Small, Audrey.
The Duty of Memory: A Solidarity of Voices after the Rwandan Genocide
Volume 30, Number 1, March 2007, pp. 85-100
Edinburgh University Press
* 2008 marks 10 years since the Rwanda residencies
* Connects to the larger movement of reconciliation literature and theatre over the last decade (in South Africa, etc.)
Like this alot - and the connection with the memory stuff flooding SA shelves, the Jewish template on how to deal with pain. Here, we could ask the participating writers to revisit (as in 2008) and send 100-250 each - shorter pieces needed also, at this rate the Chronic is about 25000 pages...
ReplyDeleteHere are the names of the participants:
ReplyDelete"The project “Rwanda – Writing in Duty of Memory” was initiated by Nocky Djedanoum,
Chadian writer and director of the festival Fest’Africa, and the journalist Maïmouna
Coulibaly...All of the participants published a book except the only English-writing author, Meja Mwangi. Four chose the novel as their medium, namely Boris Boubacar Diop with Murambi – le livre des ossements, Monique Ilboudou with Murekatete, Tierno Monénembo with L’ainé des orphelins, and Koulsy Lamko with La
phalène des collines. Véronique Tadjo and Abdourahman Waberi took to more fragementary,
semi-fictional forms, L’ombre d’Imana being a sort of travel diary, a collage of impressions,
reflections and stories, and Moisson de crânes a volume of essays. The two Rwandan
participants, Jean-Marie Vianney Rurangwa and Venuste Kayimahe, were opposed to the idea
of writing fictional literature about the genocide. But still Rurangwa, who explicitly refused a fictionalizing approach, introduced a fictional element into his text. The text Le génocide des Tutsi expliqué à un étranger, where the author expresses his view of the genocide and the reasons that led to it, is written in the form of a fictional interview. Kayimahe was the only participant who had been to Rwanda when the genocide of the Tutsis started. He survived and was able to flee to Kenya with part of his family, but had to leave behind five of his children. One of his daughters was murdered. Kayimahe published his testimony in France-Rwanda - Les coulisses du génocide. Témoignage d’un rescapé. He especially explored the role France
played by supporting the dictatorship, which made the genocide possible and prepared the
ground for it. Nocky Djedanoum who, together with the journalist Maïmouna Coulibaly,
initiated and organized the project published a volume of poetry with the title Nyamirambo!,
which is also the name of a neighbourhood of Rwanda’s capital Kigali."
Excerpt from 'Creative writing in the aftermath of the genocide in Rwanda:
The project Rwanda – Ecrire par devoir de mémoire'
http://www.univie.ac.at/afrika/mitarbeiterinnen/kopf_04.pdf