Our Lady of the Nile

Set fifteen years before the Rwanda Genocide, Scholalstique Mukasonga's novella Our Lady of the Nile takes readers into a girls' private school rife with political, ethnic and religious tension. Centering (kind of) on the stories of Veronica and Virginia, the two Tutsi girls in their class, Mukasonga details the relationships between the girls, the teachers, and the greater state. In doing so, she presents a lyrical portrait of pre-genocide Rwanda. What drew me into the book was the language; the characters were not necessarily fully-fleshed out (at 244 short pages, there could have been room for this). The descriptions Mukasonga employs to evoke the rain, or the way the head teacher walked, are where she thrived. This is probably due to the fact that one, Mukasonga herself grew up in Rwanada (but escaped before the genocide), and two, this was her first foray into fiction after writing non-fiction about the genocide. Setting it in an elite girls' private school was an inspired choice by Mukasonga; young women, in all their cliquey-ness and gossip, can be a fantastic reflection of the political climate. All-in-all, the book is a worthwhile read on the Rwandan genocide. Mukasonga provides insight by not shining a light directly at what happened in 1994, but by dwelling in the shadows leading up to it. Rating: ★★★★