Abstract:
Various writers and survivors have offered literary responses to the genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda. In 1998, a group of African
intellectuals, mostly non-Rwandans, of whom two were female authors, participated in a collective writing project, Rwanda: écrire
par devoir de mémoire, tasked to tell the story of the genocide. Genocide survivor, sociologist and psychotherapist, Esther
Mujawayo, has since narrated her own story. Although critics have explored the portrayal of trauma in literature in other texts
and contexts, a comparative study between these three texts of female authors; one survivor and two intellectuals, focusing on
the experience of female survivors and in particular that of being raped has not yet been conducted. This article examines how
trauma is made visible to the reader by exploring the characteristics of the ‘death experience’ and their mediated form, as offered
by the three authors. This comparative study furthermore highlights the elements in the lives of survivors which influence their
ability to move from a position of mere survival to that of embracing life after the genocide.
