2020 Zaharoff Lecture
In collaboration with the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages
This event is part of the Humanities Cultural Programme

Wednesday 11 November 2020, 17:00-1800

Please note this lecture will be given in French

LIve Event. Please follow the link to watch the talk: www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVyrNXzZwN8&feature=youtu.be

Speakers:

Scholastique Mukasonga, Author

Introduced by Professor Catriona Seth, Marshal Foch Professor of French Literature; Fellow of All Souls College.

Survivre pour témoigner/témoigner pour survivre:

Summary:

J’essaierai au cours de cette cette conférence de retracer mon cheminement vers l’écriture.

Rien ne me destinait en effet à devenir écrivaine. C’est le génocide des Tutsi au Rwanda en 1994 qui a fait de moi une écrivaine. Survivante, et pour échapper au remords qui hantent toujours les survivants, je n’avais d’autre choix que d’être la gardienne de la mémoire des miens assassinés. Je me devais donc d’édifier un tombeau pour ceux qui resteraient toujours sans sépulture, et ce tombeau serait un livre, un tombeau de papier.

Tels furent pour moi mes premiers livres. L’intérêt qu’ils suscitèrent auprès des lecteurs m’incita à persévérer. On attendait mes livres. De l’autobiographie, aux nouvelles et aux romans, presque à mon insu, j’étais devenue écrivaine.

Translation:

I will try during this lecture to retrace my journey towards writing.

Nothing in fact destined me to become a writer. It was the genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda in 1994 that made me a writer. As a survivor, and to escape the remorse that always haunts survivors, I had no choice but to be the memory keeper of my murdered loved ones. I felt the need to build a tomb for those who would always remain without burial, a tomb which would take the form of a book, a paper tomb. This is what my first books represented for me.

The interest they aroused in readers prompted me to persevere. People started waiting for my books. From autobiography, to short stories, novellas, and novels, almost unbeknownst to myself, I had become a writer.
Date: 11 November 2020, 17:00 (Wednesday, 5th week, Michaelmas 2020)
Venue: Venue to be announced
Speakers: Speaker to be announced
Booking required?: Not required
Audience: Public
Editor: Krisztina Lugosi