Kibogo

by Scholastique Mukasonga, Mark Polizzotti (Translator)

Overview

FINALIST FOR THE 2022 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD

A new masterwork of satire, lore, and living memory from the leading voice of French-Rwandan literature

“Mukasonga breathes upon a vanished world and brings it to life in all its sparkling multifariousness” —J.M. Coetzee

In four beautifully woven parts, Mukasonga spins a marvelous recounting of the clash between ancient Rwandan beliefs and the missionaries determined to replace them with European Christianity.

When a rogue priest is defrocked for fusing the gospels with the martyrdom of Kibogo, a fierce clash of cults ensues. Swirling with the heady smell of wet earth and flashes of acerbic humor, Mukasonga brings to life the vital mythologies that imbue the Rwandan spirit. In doing so, she gives us a tale of disarming simplicity and profound universal truth.

Kibogo’s story is reserved for the evening’s end, when women sit around a fire drinking honeyed brew, when just a few are able to stave off sleep. With heads nodding, drifting into the mist of a dream, one faithful storyteller will weave the old legends of the hillside, stories which church missionaries have done everything in their power to expunge.

To some, Kibogo’s tale is founding myth, celestial marvel, magic incantation, bottomless source of hope. To white priests spritzing holy water on shriveled, drought-ridden trees, it looms like red fog over the village: forbidden, satanic, a witchdoctor’s hoax. All debate the twisted roots of this story, but deep down, all secretly wonder – can Kibogo really summon the rain?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781953861368
Publisher:	Steerforth Press
Publication date:	09/13/2022
Pages:	152
Sales rank:	673,789
Product dimensions:	5.22(w) x 6.76(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Born in Rwanda in 1956, Scholastique Mukasonga experienced from childhood the violence and humiliation of the ethnic conflicts that shook her country. Her family was displaced in 1960, and was later forced to flee to Burundi. She settled in France in 1992, only two years before the brutal genocide of the Tutsi swept through Rwanda, which resulted in the massacre of 37 of her family members. Her previous books Our Lady of the Nile, Cockroaches, The Barefoot Woman, and Igifu have been the recipients of many awards and international acclaim.

Mark Polizzotti is a biographer, critic, translator of more than fifty books, editor, and poet. He is the author of Sympathy for the Traitor, Highway 61 Revisited, Revolution of the Mind: The Life of André Breton. Polizzotti directs the publications program at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Editorial Reviews

07/25/2022

Mukasonga (Igifu) draws on Rwanda’s colonial history and ancient myths for an intriguing theological satire. In the opener, “Ruzagayura,” set in the aftermath of the 1943 famine, characters variously blame the disaster on Hitler, paganism, and missionaries. After a French priest, referred to only as “padri,” urges villagers to pray for rain, the elders call on their own mythical martyr, Kibogo, a king’s son who sacrificed himself to bring rain. Kibogo’s last priestess, Mukamwezi, lives on the local mountain and agrees to help. But when the rains come, the padri claims the Virgin Mary brought the rain. In “Akayezu,” the Rwandan title character is kicked out of a seminary for heresy after linking the story of Kibogo with that of Jesus and Elijah. In “Mukamwezi,” Akayezu attempts to baptize an old pagan woman, but instead, the two join forces. In the complex and revelatory “Kibogo,” a white professor arrives to record the stories of Kibogo told by two old men of the village. As the men compete in their storytelling, three young men join in, and the professor eventually hears the story he wants them to tell, Mukasonga complicates the blurry line between history and myth and critiques its relationship to colonialism. This speaks volumes to the power of storytelling. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

"Official dogma is no match for the mercurial power of storytelling in Rwandan-French writer Scholastique Mukasonga’s sly new novel Kibogo . . . Mischievous and satirical . . . The stories themselves are furtively retold and altered and added to across time, subsuming even their tellers as they demonstrate a life force and lifespan that mere mortals can’t compete with." — Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal

"A searing tale of contending gods, religions, and economies in colonial Rwanda . . . As Mukasonga’s story opens, a village subchief, bribed by a "Colonial" with “a watch, a pair of sunglasses, a bottle of port wine, two jerry cans of gasoline, [and] a swath of fabric for his wife and daughters,” rounds up the children to serve in the war effort against Germany by harvesting anti-malarial flowers. Other agents of change follow . . . Drought ensues, and with it the people starve, and with that they recall the old ways . . . Pensive and lyrical; a closely observed story of cultures in collision." — Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

"Complex and revelatory . . . Mukasonga complicates the blurry line between history and myth and critiques its relationship to colonialism. This speaks volumes to the power of storytelling." — Publishers Weekly

"Kibogo is a rich novel about how real people and events are transformed into legends, and how those legends empower the marginalized." — Eileen Gonzalez, Foreword Reviews

"Priests and village elders, small boys and wise women, saviors both earthly and heavenly, local chiefs and anthropologists populate this slim volume, drawing the reader into a world that is distant in both time and space, a world that is well worth visiting." — Shara Kronmal, Chicago Review of Books

"A triumph . . . Biting and gloriously satirical, Mukasonga's novel shows how stories can wield a power that is greater than the sword, resisting ownership by any one person or power. It is a rich and hilarious work." — Declan Fry, ABC News

"There may be a lot of tall tales in Kibogo, but there are others we know to be true: the exploitation of Rwanda by the white man during colonialism and beyond, and the battle between the white man’s religion and Rwandan culture and beliefs. It is these truths that remain on our minds long after the fire dies down and the storytelling is done." — Susi Wyss, Washington Independent Review of Books

"Powerful and playful . . . Seeded throughout with luminous poetic moments . . . Mukasonga adds a new layer to the canvas containing her vanished culture. Amid destruction there’s confusion and manipulation, but there’s also the power of myth and human resilience. With this book, Mukasonga looks into a very dark night and imagines distant stars containing beautiful possibilities." — David Varno, Words Without Borders

"The power of storytelling and the power of women is a constant amidst the stunning imagery and cutting anti-colonial critique of this collection, translated insightfully by Mark Polizotti. An immense achievement." — Pierce Alquist, Book Riot

"Mukasonga is an exquisitely original and sensitive writer." — Elaine Margolin, World Literature Today

"In an interview with Le Monde, Mukasonga referred to her books as 'paper tombs' for a Rwandan way of life that has been crushed by colonization and genocide. In Kibogo, that lost world comes to vivid, sardonic life." — Constance Grady, Vox

"Scholastique Mukasonga’s stunning Kibogo . . . has at its center a story told among a Rwandan community and long hidden from their colonial Belgian occupiers: that of Kibogo, who sacrificed his life so that rain would return to his community, and Mukamwezi, his isolated, still-living widow. In the midst of famine, this central story becomes a lens, a guide, and a spiritual center, powered by the strength of community memory and imagination. Mukasonga’s writing is lyrical, powerful, and so rewarding; this story is unforgettable." — Corinne Segal, Literary Hub, "Our Favorite Books of 2022"

"Over the course of the story [Mukasonga] transfers the manipulations and variations on Kibogo’s story from the hands of the “oldsters” gradually down to the “youngsters.” Her version of guarding this patrimony has nothing to do with maintaining purity or handing down from on high. For her country’s tales to stay alive and interesting it is essential to release the stories . . . and let them ascend. Freedom and variation are the very nature of a living history." — Abby Walthausen, Asymptote

"This book is made up of four stories that come together to capture a belief system being threatened by the “progress” colonization brings . . . Mukasonga is an incredible author." — Book Riot

"[Kibogo] reads effortlessly . . . bringing both the spirit and the music of English in accord with the original.” — Bronwyn Mills, Cable Street Magazine

"Mukasonga has spoken about digging into “the trunk of my mother’s tales.” At one point she recalls how “a little girl, forgotten at the storyteller’s feet, who refused to go to sleep like the others, stored away in her memory, without really understanding them, the enchanted words of the fable”. One wonders if it’s an image of her younger self." — Lucy Popescu, Financial Times

“Mukasonga’s most accomplished novel . . . Kibogo is a parable about the power of folklore and the dangers of forgetting. (Mukasonga plays with the tension between oral histories and her role in transcribing them.) . . . Her books offer a way for younger Rwandans to rediscover their own culture through myths and stories that have largely been forgotten.” — Kevin Okoth, The London Review of Books

From the Publisher

★ 2022-07-13
A searing tale of contending gods, religions, and economies in colonial Rwanda.

As Mukasonga’s story opens, a village subchief, bribed by a "Colonial" with “a watch, a pair of sunglasses, a bottle of port wine, two jerry cans of gasoline, [and] a swath of fabric for his wife and daughters,” rounds up the children to serve in the war effort against Germany by harvesting anti-malarial flowers. Other agents of change follow: There are the European agronomists who come in to demand that the villagers replace their formerly diverse crops with beans and coffee, then the priests who come in to demand that they give up their “pagan” religious practices in favor of “Yezu.” Drought ensues, and with it the people starve, and with that they recall the old ways, when their king would sacrifice himself or one of his family. Kibogo, the legendary son of a king, offers himself up in one such sacrifice, volunteering in a long-ago time to climb a nearby mountain and call down the clouds in the face of sure death. That high country harbors others who are convinced of their magical powers. One is Akayezu, or “Little Jesus,” who enters a French seminary only to decide that he has divine powers of his own and, without waiting for ordination, preaches a gospel that “compared Kibogo rising to Heaven to Yezu’s ascension, Maria’s Assumption, and the abduction of the prophet Elijah on a pikipiki of thunder and flame.” Akayezu’s evangelization extends to a hermit who herself believes that she has a spirit within that “commands the rain.” When the rain does arrive, it comes in punishing torrents and violent thunderstorms that put terror in the hearts of the villagers: “Some jangled rosaries, others gourd rattles, or the bones of warthogs or of their ancestors.” It’s satisfying to see the colonial experts and intrusive priests get some measure of comeuppance while Kibogo makes his return to bring, finally, more sustaining rains, proving, as Mukasonga’s narrator has it, that “Kibogo too can shake the sky and set off the thunder: isn’t the tale of Kibogo equal to the tale of Yezu?”

Pensive and lyrical; a closely observed story of cultures in collision.

Kirkus Reviews

Mukasonga’s novel shows how stories can wield a power that is greater than the sword, resisting ownership by any one person or power.”

ABC News

The stories themselves are furtively retold and altered and added to across time, subsuming even their tellers as they demonstrate a life force and lifespan that mere mortals can’t compete with."

Wall Street Journal

Mukasonga adds a new layer to the canvas containing her vanished culture. Amid destruction there’s confusion and manipulation, but there’s also the power of myth and human resilience.”

Words without Borders

Mukasonga breathes upon a vanished world and brings it to life in all its sparkling multifariousness.”

Booker Prize–winning author J. M. Coetzee

A world that is distant in both time and space, a world that is well worth visiting.”

Chicago Review of Books

Mukasonga breathes upon a vanished world and brings it to life in all its sparkling multifariousness.”

J.M. Coetzee

Akrosia Samson narrates this new novella by Scholastique Mukasonga with an array of accents, bringing its four interwoven stories to life. Samson’s voice elicits the feeling of sitting round the campfire as the village storyteller shares the Rwandan mythos and its conflicts with the Catholicism of Belgian missionaries. Rife with the injustice and cultural erasure of colonialism, these stories share some of the original Rwandan beliefs. Spanning the period between the 1940s and the 1990s, Mukasonga’s book presents both subtle humor and an intricate understanding of the oppression her people suffered. This audio version demonstrates the importance of stories. C.F. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

DECEMBER 2022 - AudioFile