Our Lady of the Nile, by Scholastique Mukasonga, translated by Melanie Mauthner
Fiction from Rwanda that presages reality
Hello, dear BookLoves.
I'm back with the next Wayfarer's Book Club pick: Our Lady of the Nile, by Scholastique Mukasonga, set in Rwanda prior to the 1994 genocide, translated from the French by Melanie Mauthner.
1994. I’m living in Trujillo, Peru, and my days are spent teaching English to teens and young adults at a private language institute. Just a young adult myself, I’m adjusting to a whole new life in a new culture, desperate to have a conversation that delves deeper than, "Hola, cómo estás?" in Spanish.
1994. Peru is ostensibly emerging from a civil war. A strongman President is projecting an air of calm after having dissolved Congress in a “self-coup,” while Shining Path and another Maoist terrorist group (MRTA) continue to carry out attacks, while the national police and armed forces disappear university students.
1994. The Rwandan genocide is carried out from April to July, when Hutus (the ethnic majority) brutally murder nearly a million people, primarily Tutsis (the ethnic minority).
For reasons of time and place, age and era, this atrocity didn’t even make the headlines for me.
2004. A decade later, I’m back in Canada, and two books hit the shelves that finally bring this horror to my attention: Shake Hands with the Devil, a non-fiction account by Canadian Lieutenant General Roméo Dallaire, the former Force Commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda, whose hands were tied by politics and bureaucracy while the genocide raged; and A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali, a work of fiction by Gil Courtemanche (translated by Patricia Claxton), a journalist who had covered the country prior to the genocide, and lost many friends and acquaintances during it.
Those two stories impacted me profoundly and remain with me today.
Fast forward to the 2020s. As I began to promote world lit more and more, and grew more familiar with African lit, I kept an eye out for Rwandan writers in particular.
But once again, despite her renown as perhaps the most celebrated Rwandan author, with eight books of fiction and non-fiction published since 2006, several available in English, Scholastique Mukasonga escaped my notice until just this past fall.
Before even reading her, just reading about her, I knew I wanted to add one of her books to the Wayfarers list.
Our Lady of the Nile spoke to me because it takes place about twenty years prior to the genocide, when ethnic tensions were building, and from the point of view of adolescent girls at a remote boarding school.
This is no ordinary Catholic school, but one for the future feminine elite, the daughters of government officials and army officers, whose boyfriends are ambassadors, owners of convertibles and motorbikes.
Gloriosa, a Hutu senior, reigns supreme. By her side is Modesta, half Hutu, half Tutsi, less friend and more subject, controlled through fear. Virginia and Veronica are the 2/20 Tutsi allowed into the school by the government-imposed quota, and the obvious targets of bullying.
Just a short walk up a dirt track into the mountains is the Nile, indeed the source of it, and there stands a statute, Our Lady of the Nile, a black Mary—or a white European Mary, painted black.
Just next door is Monsieur Fontanaille, a White coffee plantation owner who lures Tutsi girls to his place.
These are the characters, elements and setting that intertwine until Gloriosa knowingly tells a lie that she fans into a raging fire that explodes into violence—the way lies that are sparked by a kernel of malice and stoked by righteousness so often do.
Throughout this novel, the ordinary belies the extraordinary. Girls study and stare out the window in class, decorate their dorm space and steal teaspoons of sugar for their siblings, bully and are bullied, endure dull routines and homesickness.
Throughout, a certain balance reigns. We are introduced to the intricacies of Rwandan history, culture and politics, yet never lose sight of these particular girls as they walk the line between adolescence and adulthood, school and national politics.
Throughout, the story builds, the undercurrent of an ethnic divide bubbling at the source, swelling like the river Nile in rainy season, and eventually overflowing its banks to wreak havoc.
Throughout, we appreciate the brilliant allegory. The lives, attitudes and actions of these teen girls grow all the more meaningful to us as readers—and all the more frightening—because we know what actually happens country-wide twenty years later.
Born in 1956, Scholastique Mukasonga experienced Tutsi pogroms as a child, when the Hutus came to power and her family was forced to flee elsewhere in the country. Mukasonga later studied at an elite school like Our Lady of the Nile, under the quota system, where she was the target of racism. And later, at college, she witnessed events similar to those at the climax of this novel.
Eventually forced to flee the country, not all of her family did: thirty-seven of them were among the hundreds of thousands of Tutsi souls massacred in the 1994 genocide.
Such personal, lived truths penetrate this novel, in tender language and unabashedly frank plot points.
Though a debut novel, Scholastique Mukasonga clearly honed her voice in two previous books, both non-fiction memoirs. There is a maturity, a solidity to the writing, which comes through in the translation by Melanie Mauthner.
Mauthner is also a sociologist, and her work centered on feminist topics that also included school violence. I can't imagine a more apt, skilled or sensitive translator for this or Mukasonga’s other works.
Our Lady of the Nile was made into a film, and I couldn’t wait to watch it after reading the book. It's a liberal adaptation, not to mention a spectacular, artful and evocative one.
All of the girls in the film are Rwandan, none of them professional actors, and it was filmed entirely in country, in French, with Kinyarwandan featured as well.
The film felt more innocent than the book, the racial tensions more understated as the story progresses…until the climax, which is much more graphic and brutal than the book.
Mukasonga says she cried when she saw the film. I can well imagine that, because even for me, someone with no similar lived experience or exposure to Rwanda, it was an emotional, immersive experience.
"Rather than a writer, I prefer to call myself a storyteller, as Rwandan mothers should be, because, as the saying goes, ‘Umuntu uca umugani ntagira inabi ku mutim.’ The one who tells a story has no hatred in their heart."
—Scholastique Mukasonga
What at extraordinarily beautiful, powerful sentiment—let alone from a woman who has been subjected to extreme hatred with tragic consequences.
To be introduced to Rwanda through her eyes, to be in the orbit of such a woman, even at a distance, through this novel, has been a pleasure and privilege I won't soon forget.
I hope you might find the same too.
Yours, in books and love,
~Lisa
Explore More
Scholastique Mukasonga’s website
2020 interview with Scholastique about her books, her movie, her social work, and more
Full film adaptation of Our Lady of the Nile or the trailer
An older article that features Melanie Mauthner and how she advocated for Scholastique Mukasonga and her books to be translated
A review of Our Lady of the Nile
Read More
Reviews of A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali, by Gil Courtemanche, translated by Patricia Claxton:
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/a-sunday-at-the-pool-in-kigali-by-gil-courtemanche-trans-patricia-claxton-102403.html
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/oct/05/fiction.features1
Reviews of Romeo Dallaire’s two non-fiction titles relating to the Rwandan genocide:
Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda - Quill and Quire
Waiting for First Light: My Ongoing Battle with PTSD - Quill and Quire
Ponder More
What do you remember about the Rwandan genocide when it took place or when you learned of it later?
What books have you read about Rwanda and how did they impact you?
If you’ve read Scholastique Mukasonga’s work, what was your experience?
Our Lady of the Nile: Will you add it to your TBR (to be read) list? What intrigues you most?
And/or will you watch the film?
What about Courtemanche’s novel and Dallaire’s memoirs?
Do share your musings on one or more of the questions or anything else from the recommendation in a comment below! I LOVE to hear from you.
What a beautifully interesting book and review!
This made me think of Marjorie Agostin's two YA books, starting with "I Lived on a Butterfly Hill" which brought Chilean dictature in light, but in a mystic way... Somehow veiled for children, but still there in all its brutality.
I'm definitely adding Mukasonga on my reading list. Thank you!