This is a challenging work for an English-speaking Westerner not due to any innovation of form or use of language but because of how it submerses the reader in the context of Rwanda’s social, political, and geographical divisions as they played out in the 1970s without much in the way of direct explanations. Assuming one has just a fairly basic familiarity with Rwanda - colonization, Hutu/Tutsi divide, 1994 genocide - this creates, or at least it did in my case, a distancing effect, as unfamiliar Rwandan terms and references and history are encountered, yet by the end it seems to have rather cleverly all come together and produced a new level of understanding that, going back to the start of the book, finds one able to appreciate the earlier stories in a brighter light, knowing for instance how different characters serve as representations of different sectors of society - this one is Hutu Power politicians in the capital, this one is the northern military power base, this one represents the politically flexible financial elite, this one the historical responsibility of the Western powers for Rwanda’s ethnic divisions and that one those powers’ contemporary willful blindness, etc. (“‘We’re so close to heaven,’ whispers Mother Superior”, from the opening paragraph set at the high altitude school, has a far more sinister sound the second time of reading.)

That this is combined with the traditional coming-of-age school setting story quite successfully is a terrific achievement. Although I’ve been aware of the book’s existence for years, since its American publication in translation in 2014, it was only its shortlisting for the Republic of Consciousness 2022 prize after being published by a British small press that I got around to reading it, another reason to be glad I follow this prize. ( )

Difficile de passer à côté de ce livre quand on se pique, comme moi, de s’intéresser aux littératures étrangères. Et pourtant il m’a fallu le défi de littérature africaine de cette année pour enfin me décider à l’ouvrir.
Scholastique Mukasonga, rescapée du génocide de 1994, a choisi pour évoquer son pays et ses difficultés (un bel euphémisme de ma part) à faire nation de placer son texte dans un lieu et un temps qui semble de prime abord éloigné de ses préoccupations.
Le lieu, c’est le pensionnat pour jeunes filles fortunées de Notre-Dame du Nil, dans les collines verdoyantes du Rwanda, pas loin de l’une des sources du grand fleuve ; le temps, c’est une année scolaire un peu particulière, une dizaine d’années après l’indépendance et alors que la politique pro-Hutu se durcit et donne lieu notamment à une dé-Tutsisation des établissements scolaires. Les personnages, ce sont bien sûr les jeunes filles scolarisées dans cet établissement, principalement des Hutus socialement connectées aux hautes sphères du pouvoir et de l’argent qui se préparent à faire un beau mariage, et quelques Tutsis pour respecter le quota, sélectionnées elles par concours. Il y a aussi le personnel de l’école : des religieuses, un prêtre pas très net, des professeurs belges, des objecteurs de conscience français, et puis il ne faut pas oublier de mentionner le voisin, un vieux colon belge propriétaire d’une plantation de café.
Avec cette panoplie de personnages, ce n’est pas vraiment un roman que Scholastique Mukasonga écrit, mais plutôt une série de scènes qui présentent une unité de lieu et de temps. Et avec ces scènes, Sholastique Mukasonga évoque les différentes facettes du pays. La plus évidente : la rivalité devenue haine qui sépare Hutus et Tutsis ; la plus dérangeante : la fascination des Européens pour les Tutsis et leurs relectures fantasques mais mortifères de la mythologie égyptienne ou de l’Ancien Testament ; la moins questionnée : l’exclusion systématique des Batwas ; etc. Le portrait que Scholastique Mukasonga fait de son pays est multiple et complexe et elle montre, sans le dire, comment cette complexité a abouti vingt ans plus tard au génocide que l’on connaît. Car toute la rhétorique était déjà en place, pas seulement une discrimination ouverte, mais aussi tout un discours de rabaissement et d’appel à l’extermination. Comme un relent de : « on ne peut pas dire qu’on ne savait pas ».

Une lecture qui se déroule assez facilement grâce au style sans inutile fioriture de l’autrice, mais qui fait beaucoup réfléchir. C’était, j’imagine, un pari risqué de parler du génocide sans un parler. Ce pari est réussi, et en plus dans un livre accessible qui pourra plaire à de nombreux lecteurs, que demander de plus ?

it's a novel set in a Catholic school in Rwanda in the mid-70's, where upper-middle class young ladies go to improve their chances with marriage and career. Most of the girls are Hutu, but there are a couple of Tutsi girls allowed under the quota.

I think this is the first novel set in Rwanda that I've read, and it did help me get more background and understanding of the country. I wasn't completely enthralled by the writing, but it was OK.

The strength of this book is the contrast between the schoolgirls, who seem like normal teen-age girls; and the background of impending war and genocide. Plus the dash of colonialism. ( )

Scholastique Mukasonga was born in Rwanda in 1956, a few years before the pogroms against the Tutsis began. In 1959, her family was forcibly deported to a refugee camp in the scrublands. Despite the harsh conditions and the government quota on the number of Tutsis allowed to attend secondary school, Mukasonga was able to attend the Lycée Notre-Dame-de-Citeaux in Kigali. She eventually became a social worker in order to help less fortunate women in the country. In 1973 when all Tutsi schoolchildren were expelled from school and all Tutsi government employees were driven out of their jobs, she fled to Burundi. She moved to France in 1992. In 1994 37 members of her family were killed in the genocide. It was 2004 before she felt safe enough to return for a visit, and the trip inspired her to begin writing of her experiences in a series of autobiographical works, and then the novel Our Lady of the Nile.

The novel tells the story of Virginia and her friend, Veronica, two Tutsi girls allowed to attend the Lycée of the Lady of the Nile under the quota. Each chapter is a vignette in the life there, that slowly build to the climax of the girls' fates. One chapter describes the installation of the Virgin Mary statue at the purported source of the Nile, after which the school is named. Another describes the Belgian queen's visit to the school. Despite the seeming disjointedness of the narrative and the unemotional tone of the writing, I was filled with dread as I read. Although the novel never makes explicit the date of the action, I think it was the late 70s. In 2019 a film adaptation was made, by director Atiq Rahimi. ( )

I just finished Our Lady of the Nile and will admit to being enormously disappointed. I didn't find the writing anything special, I didn't find the plot or the "message" anything special, and overall I must say that I don't eagerly anticipate my next effort at her work. I will, without doubt, read more, because it's unwise and unfair to dismiss a writer based on a single work. That said, I am more than a little surprised at the reception this work has received. There is a blurb on the back of my edition saying that "Mukasonga writes in a luminous and penetrating language...." I have no idea who the author of that line is (Jérôme Garcin of Le Nouvel Observateur) but he must not read much. The prose, while clear and straightforward, is about as far as I can imagine from being either "luminous" or "penetrating." This is a simple story about girls at a prestigious Catholic boarding school in Rwanda; the civil war inevitably finds its way to the school. But that doesn't truly take place until the end of the book. The tangents (the visit from the Queen of Belgium, the stereotyped white "collector" of Tutsi girls) are not only tangential, but so clichéed as to have little or no impact. It's hard to care about these characters more generally because few of them are developed at all. I understand Mukasonga's desire to bear witness to what happened in Rwanda, but I am totally baffled that this won the Prix Renaudot or, quite honestly, any prize at all. I have read my share--possibly more than my share--of books recounting civil wars and of horrors and terrors very like this: this book doesn't compare to the best of those even remotely. Is it a story that far too few know much about? Without question. Is this the book to impress the horror on readers? Not in my opinion. ( )