Literature & Ideas
Landmark
Yolande Mukagasana
born 1954
Wrote the first great survivor's account of the genocide
Landmark is level 2 of 4 in the Rwanda Hall of Fame: a first that opened a door, or the pre-eminent figure of their generation in this country. See how the levels work.
Why they are here
A nurse who lost her husband and her three children in 1994 and then wrote the books that gave the genocide a first-person literature — testimony that has been taught, staged and cited in court.
Yolande Mukagasana ran a nursing practice in Kigali. In April 1994 her husband and her three children were killed; she survived hidden in a neighbour's house.
Her memoir La mort ne veut pas de moi, published in 1997, was the first major survivor's account of the genocide to reach a wide readership, followed by N'aie pas peur de savoir and a book of collected testimonies gathered from both survivors and perpetrators. She has testified before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and spent three decades in schools and public halls arguing that the point of the testimony is prevention. She holds the UNESCO Education for Peace Prize and the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
Her memoir La mort ne veut pas de moi, published in 1997, was the first major survivor's account of the genocide to reach a wide readership, followed by N'aie pas peur de savoir and a book of collected testimonies gathered from both survivors and perpetrators. She has testified before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and spent three decades in schools and public halls arguing that the point of the testimony is prevention. She holds the UNESCO Education for Peace Prize and the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
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