Extending the Battlefield: Genocide and the Family in Goretti Kyomuhendo’s Secrets No More
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Ogaga Okuyade
Abstract
In Goretti Kyomuhendo’s Secrets No More, the faces of the individual figures often vividly emerge, and the artistically recreated events and situations of the Rwandan genocide can be precisely located and corroborated with historical evidence. However, despite its accessibility and its interconnection of history and fiction, most major studies of fictions on the Rwandan genocide seldom refer to it. Most narratives on the Rwandan genocide explore the historicity of the carnage with stark images of human bestiality and the debility of the victims. Kyomuhendo deals with the same experience and issues, but the vignettes that make up her narrative differ. She gives an eloquent account of the devastating blow the genocide wreaked on the family and by extension on the relationship between the woman’s body and the nation, especially if the body has ethnic pigmentation. The narrative captures the gory image of a total and unmitigated disaster, tinged with anger and disappointment over the violent destruction of lives and properties and the human folly in attempting to wipe out a group. I examine the violence inflicted upon a specific group in the Rwandan genocide, articulating how the latitude of the battlefield was extended beyond the physical space of engagement to the bodies and the psyche of vulnerable groups. This in turn will show how the relationship between gender and national identity is reconstructed during ethnic clashes.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) for providing the grant used in conducting research on this article as a Fellow of the African Humanities Program (AHP) and Centre for Humanities Research, University of the Western Cape for the convivial ambiance for research.
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© 2014 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Contributions
- Mapping the Unreal: Max Blecher in the Shadow of the Avant-garde
- On Concepts and Naps
- Reading Machines: On the Surface of Meaning – Beyond the Surface of Discourse
- Paper Trails
- Attending the Dying: Images of Compassion
- Reading Allegory and Nature in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road: Towards a Non-Anthropocentric Vision of the Language of Nature
- Extending the Battlefield: Genocide and the Family in Goretti Kyomuhendo’s Secrets No More
- Form und Formauflösung nach Paul Ernst: Die Suche nach einem sittlichen Formideal
- The Hot-House Atmosphere of Cell Number 40[4]: Space and Identity in Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon
- «Une promesse faite à des nègres serait sans valeur»
- Reviews
- Michael Neecke und Lu Jiang (Hrsg.): „Unübersetzbar?“ Zur Kritik der literarischen Übersetzung, Hamburg, Verlag Dr. Kovač, 2013. Ravi Kumar (ed.): The Role of Translation in Nation Building, New Delhi: Modlingua, 2012.
- Tomáš Kubíček, Jan Wiendl (Hgg.), Moderna/Moderny, Olomouc: UPOL 2013. ISBN 978-80-244-3418-6.
- Jiang Chengyong and Wu Yuesu: A Thematic Exploration of 20th Century Western Literature. Beijing: China’s Social Sciences Press, 2013.
- Letteratura e geografia. Atlanti, modelli, letture. A cura di Francesco Fiorentino e Carla Solivetti. Macerata: Quodlibet/Studio 2012, 226 Seiten. Raumlektüren. Der Spatial Turn und die Literatur der Moderne, hg. von Tim Mehigan, Alan Corkhill. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag 2013, 320 Seiten.
- Adele Parker / Stephenie Young (eds.): Transnationalism and Resistance: Experience and Experiment in Women’s Writing. Amsterdam, New York, NY: Rodopi, 2013, 301 Seiten
- Jan Wilm, Mark Nixon (eds.). Samuel Beckett und die deutsche Literatur. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2013.
- Kirsten Sandrock and Owain Wright (eds.): Locating Italy: East and West in British-Italian Transactions. Amsterdam/New York, Rodopi, 2013, pp. 240, ISBN 978-90-420-3635-2
- Amir Eshel, Futurity: Contemporary Literature and the Quest for the Past, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London 2013, 355 pages. Amir Eshel, Zukünftigkeit. Die zeitgenössische Literatur und die Vergangenheit. Aus dem Englischen von Irmgard Hölscher, Jüdischer Verlag im Suhrkamp Verlag, Berlin 2012, 343 Seiten.
- Christian Kiening, Heinrich Adolf (Hg.): Der absolute Film. Dokumente der Medienavantgarde (1912–1936). (Reihe Medienwandel – Medienwechsel – Medienwissen. Band 25). Zürich: Chronos Verlag, 2012, 512 Seiten
- Claudia Gronemann, Tanja Schwan, Cornelia Sieber (Hgg.), Strategien von Autorschaft in der Romania. Zur Neukonzipierung einer Kategorie im Rahmen literatur-, kultur- und medienwissenschaftlich basierter Geschlechtertheorien, Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2012.
- Handbuch Komparatistik. Theorien, Arbeitsfelder, Wissenspraxis, hg. v. Rüdiger Zymner u. Achim Hölter, Stuttgart/Weimar: Verlag J.B. Metzler, 2013.
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Contributions
- Mapping the Unreal: Max Blecher in the Shadow of the Avant-garde
- On Concepts and Naps
- Reading Machines: On the Surface of Meaning – Beyond the Surface of Discourse
- Paper Trails
- Attending the Dying: Images of Compassion
- Reading Allegory and Nature in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road: Towards a Non-Anthropocentric Vision of the Language of Nature
- Extending the Battlefield: Genocide and the Family in Goretti Kyomuhendo’s Secrets No More
- Form und Formauflösung nach Paul Ernst: Die Suche nach einem sittlichen Formideal
- The Hot-House Atmosphere of Cell Number 40[4]: Space and Identity in Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon
- «Une promesse faite à des nègres serait sans valeur»
- Reviews
- Michael Neecke und Lu Jiang (Hrsg.): „Unübersetzbar?“ Zur Kritik der literarischen Übersetzung, Hamburg, Verlag Dr. Kovač, 2013. Ravi Kumar (ed.): The Role of Translation in Nation Building, New Delhi: Modlingua, 2012.
- Tomáš Kubíček, Jan Wiendl (Hgg.), Moderna/Moderny, Olomouc: UPOL 2013. ISBN 978-80-244-3418-6.
- Jiang Chengyong and Wu Yuesu: A Thematic Exploration of 20th Century Western Literature. Beijing: China’s Social Sciences Press, 2013.
- Letteratura e geografia. Atlanti, modelli, letture. A cura di Francesco Fiorentino e Carla Solivetti. Macerata: Quodlibet/Studio 2012, 226 Seiten. Raumlektüren. Der Spatial Turn und die Literatur der Moderne, hg. von Tim Mehigan, Alan Corkhill. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag 2013, 320 Seiten.
- Adele Parker / Stephenie Young (eds.): Transnationalism and Resistance: Experience and Experiment in Women’s Writing. Amsterdam, New York, NY: Rodopi, 2013, 301 Seiten
- Jan Wilm, Mark Nixon (eds.). Samuel Beckett und die deutsche Literatur. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2013.
- Kirsten Sandrock and Owain Wright (eds.): Locating Italy: East and West in British-Italian Transactions. Amsterdam/New York, Rodopi, 2013, pp. 240, ISBN 978-90-420-3635-2
- Amir Eshel, Futurity: Contemporary Literature and the Quest for the Past, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London 2013, 355 pages. Amir Eshel, Zukünftigkeit. Die zeitgenössische Literatur und die Vergangenheit. Aus dem Englischen von Irmgard Hölscher, Jüdischer Verlag im Suhrkamp Verlag, Berlin 2012, 343 Seiten.
- Christian Kiening, Heinrich Adolf (Hg.): Der absolute Film. Dokumente der Medienavantgarde (1912–1936). (Reihe Medienwandel – Medienwechsel – Medienwissen. Band 25). Zürich: Chronos Verlag, 2012, 512 Seiten
- Claudia Gronemann, Tanja Schwan, Cornelia Sieber (Hgg.), Strategien von Autorschaft in der Romania. Zur Neukonzipierung einer Kategorie im Rahmen literatur-, kultur- und medienwissenschaftlich basierter Geschlechtertheorien, Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2012.
- Handbuch Komparatistik. Theorien, Arbeitsfelder, Wissenspraxis, hg. v. Rüdiger Zymner u. Achim Hölter, Stuttgart/Weimar: Verlag J.B. Metzler, 2013.
