Reviews with content warning for Death - Our Lady of the Nile

Our Lady of the Nile is an elite Catholic boarding school for girls in Rwanda. In this story, set 15 years prior to the 1994 Rwandan genocide, the tension between Hutu and Tutsi students is palpable and reflects the general state of things in the country. What I really liked about this book was the social commentary that the author quietly inserted via the opinions of characters. She shows the conditions that led to the genocide, including Belgian involvement in Rwanda, as a slow buildup to the final events of the book. The numerous narrators and some of the odd storylines didn’t work for me. My edition of the book also had some muddled up pages towards the end, which didn’t help! Over all, I’m glad I read this book.

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4.0

First published in 2012, translated to English by Melanie Mauthner in 2014, and set in 1973 this story of Rwandan school girls at an elite catholic school perched in the mountains exists both decades before and after the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi . Nonetheless a book which illustrates part of how the country got there. Much older tensions and divisions, and for a newly formed republic the seeds and continuing effects of Belgium colonisation and Christianisation. Coup d’état, violence, predation, additionally regulations and expulsions on an ethnic basis in areas of public influence and schools a prelude. Hindsight may be 20/20, but the writing was on the wall literally. Along with plenty of Tutsi and Hutu blood in the region.

As well, a story that is undoubtedly a personal and therapeutic work for the author. Born in 1956 Scholastique Mukasonga faced the continued persecutions against Tutsis, displaced from her home village as a child. Writing previous autobiographical works on her mother and this, tombs and memorials of sorts. Our Lady of the Nile marked her first fiction novel, a method allowing distance to express the themes and her memories. Mukasonga had the chance to pursue education attending a prestigious school similar to her creation in the book alongside daughters of the country’s politicians. The character of Virginia essentially herself. As a teenager eventually forced to flee the country entirely, and decades later too losing most of her immediate family and a number of other relatives in the 1994 genocide. So Mukasonga turned to writing, powerful writing earning accolades. Besides the Prix Renaudot and Prix Ahmadou-Kourouma for Our Lady of the Nile, the novel given further visibility under her consultation with a 2019 film adaptation. A very beautiful piece of cinematography at that readers should also seek out.

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