The Franco-Rwandan writer was not in Rwanda in 1994. But the genocide haunts all his books, even those who do not evoke him, like “Sister Deborah”, on the evangelization of the country in the years 1930.
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It’s stronger than she. Whenever Scholastique Mukasonga crosses the bocage of her adopted Normandy, driving her car, she looks up to the sky, scrutinizing the clouds on the lookout for the face of Christ. This reflex brings her back to her childhood, of which she is “soaked” forever. It was in the early 1960s in Nyamata. The writer’s family, born in 1956, was deported to it, after the first pogroms of 1959 against the Tutsi. The inhospitable region was not “the promised land”, she sums up. Rather the kingdom of Christ as dreamed of missionaries, present in Rwanda since 1900.
The Church regained their lives. It was necessary to baptize the children so that they could go to school – it was then that the little Mukasonga received the first name of Scholastic -, attending the catechism course as well as the mass every Sunday. “Student model of the Church”, the little girl wondered if she would be one of the “good sheep” that Christ would come to seek. On the way that brought her home, she watched the sky, expecting to see her appear behind a cloud.
“Why have we become Catholic fervents?” Wonders during a telephone interview with “Le Monde of books”. She cites the first Christian sovereign, King Tutsi Charles Rudahigwa Mutara III (1911-1959). The subject taps her from his novel Coeur Darbour (Gallimard, 2016), on the myth of the return to Africa of the slaves deported on the other side of the Atlantic, and the figure of Nyabinghi. The peoples of Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania as well as the Rastafari movement dedicated a cult to this woman, born between 1750 and 1800, who rebelled against slavery.
“I was Totally acculturated “
Scholastique Mukasonga reviews his mother talking about nyabinghi while whispering. “The one who has a lot of things”, as she is nicknamed, put the settlers to the test. She could do evil like good, there was something to tremble. But the child listened only by an ear, much more impressed by the missionaries who promised the flames to sinners. “I was totally acculturated, she realizes. Today, when I speak, I constantly invoke Mary, I punctuate my sentences with” my God “. I even wear Mary’s medal around the neck. is like a trauma. In my writings, I am always trying to know: who am I when I am not the scholastic we have shaped? This is why I like that I am called Mukasonga: C ‘is the first name my parents gave me. “
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