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Forum for Modern Language Studies Advance Access originally published online on February 20, 2009
Forum for Modern Language Studies 2009 45(2):151-161; doi:10.1093/fmls/cqp003
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© The Author (2009). Published by Oxford University Press for the Court of the University of St Andrews. All rights reserved. The University of St Andrews is a charity registered in Scotland: No. SC013532.

This article appears in the following Forum for Modern Language Studies issue: SPECIAL ISSUE: Global Francophone Africa [View the issue table of contents]

A Global African Commemoration – Rwanda: écrire par devoir de mémoire

Nicki Hitchcott

Department of French and Francophone Studies
University of Nottingham
Nottingham NG7 2RD
United Kingdom

nicki.hitchcott{at}nottingham.ac.uk

  Abstract

In 1998, a group of ten African writers from eight different nations visited the Rwandan capital, Kigali, as part of the commemorative Fest'Africa project, "Rwanda: écrire par devoir de mémoire". While they were there, the authors were invited to reflect upon, and write about, the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Nine published texts emerged as a result of the project: four novels, two travel narratives, two essays and a collection of poetry. This article discusses this unique pan-African project as a global act of commemoration which challenges and resists the essentialisation of post-1994 Rwanda in the global imagination. It considers the ways in which the project negotiates Rwanda's longstanding and difficult relationship with Western imperialism, in particular with France and "la francophonie", and suggests that what emerges from this project is a more enabling network of transnational relationships that allow for the re-remembrance of the Rwandan genocide.

Key Words: Rwanda • genocide • Fest'Africa • "Écrire par devoir de mémoire" • commemoration • francophone • Africa


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