Yolande Mukagasana - women writers to put back on the bookshelf

Arts & Ideas

BBC

Society & Culture

4.2 • 599 Ratings

🗓️ 5 August 2022

⏱️ 15 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A nurse who survived the genocide in 1994 against the Tutsi in Rwanda has written a testimony which New Generation Thinker Zoe Norridge has translated.

In Rwanda, Yolande Mukagasana is a well-known writer, public figure and campaigner for remembrance of the genocide. She has authored three testimonies, a collection of interviews with survivors and perpetrators and two volumes of Rwandan stories. Her work has received numerous international prizes, including an Honorable Mention for the UNESCO Education for Peace Prize.

Zoe Norridge, from King’s College London, argues there should be a place for Mukagasana on our shelves in UK, alongside works from the Holocaust and other genocides. Why? Because listening to survivor voices helps us to understand the human cost of mass violence.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Transcript

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0:00.0	Can I just say?
0:01.5	You're about to listen to a BBC podcast.
0:04.0	It's such a wonderful listen.
0:05.6	So nice.
0:06.5	There are loads more like it on BBC sounds.
0:08.8	Different paces, different heights.
0:10.6	The roof is buckling.
0:11.9	Where you can also listen to live sports commentary.
0:14.2	It's right foot goes for goal.
0:16.7	And then enjoy even more podcasts full of analysis and reaction to the big stories.
0:21.7	The stat that is astonishing is they ended with the lowest amount of possession.
0:25.2	And she's had to live with that.
0:26.8	So if you love sport, a passion, it's almost like a religion.
0:29.7	Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:31.7	Sort of expecting that every week now.
0:35.8	BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.
0:40.0	Zoe Norwich is a new generation thinker on a scheme run by the BBC and the Arts
0:44.4	and Humanities Research Council to turn academic research into radio programmes.
0:49.7	She studies African literature at King's College London.
0:52.7	Her essay draws on the work she's been doing as a translator.
0:56.4	The Rwandan writer Yolande Mukagasana lives in a house surrounded by mango trees and spiky-leaved euphobia bushes in the quiet town of Neumata.
1:08.0	She gets up at 4 or 5 a.m. in search of some writing time to herself and sits at her desk drinking coffee and tapping out emails to admirers around the world.
	...

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