Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse (born 1979 in Butare) is a French-Rwandan writer. She won the 2020 Prix des cinq continents de la francophonie, the 2023 Prix Ahmadou Kourouma[1] and the 2024 Prix France Télévisions.
Life
editBeata Umubyeyi Mairesse was born and grew up in Butare.[2] She survived the 1994 Rwanda genocide, and immigrated to France in July1994. She attended a private, Catholic lycée in Beaucamps-Ligny, for three years, on scholarship. During the week she lived in a boarding school and on weekends with a host family. After completing her baccalaureate, she completed the preparatory linguistic and humanities classes (Hypokhâgne and Khâgne) at the Lycée Faidherbe in Lille, obtained a diploma at the Institut d'études politiques (Sciences Po Lille) and then a Diplôme d'études supérieures spécialisées (DESS) in international cooperation and development at the Panthéon-Sorbonne University. She worked for international NGOs before settling in Bordeaux in 2007, where she coordinates health prevention projects. There she founded and co-supervised an Afro-Caribbean reading circle.
In 2015, she published her first collection of short stories, Ejo, a word that means both "yesterday" and "tomorrow" in Kinyarwanda. Through the voices of women, it tells of the time before and after the genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda.[3]
Her second collection of short stories, Lézardes (Cracks), was published in 2017. It contains a group portrait of the author's Rwandan generation, again in short stories between fairy tales and short stories, set before and after the 1994 genocide. A central element of the collection is the impact of this event on the life of children and parents-to-be.
She published her third book, Aprés le progrès (After Progress), a collection of 45 prose poems divided into three parts entitled perdu, volé, racheté (lost, stolen, bought).
She published her first novel, Tous tes enfants dispersés, in the autumn of 2019. It tells the story of a family spanning three generations between France and Rwanda, dealing with the themes of mixing and transmission. It tells through the voices of strong women who reappropriate their history, thus showing the author's feminist streak. The work was very well received by critics and was nominated for several literary prizes (Prix Wepler, Prix André Malraux, Prix Jean Giono, Prix du premier roman of the SGDL). It also received the Prix des cinq continents de la francophonie 2020, as well as several other literary prizes.
The book was translated in English by Alison Anderson and published as All your children, scattered by Europa Editions UK in 2023. It was positively reviewed by The Observer, which described it as "mesmerizing" [4] and by the Financial Times, which called it "viscerally powerful".[5]
Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse published her second novel, Consolée, in the fall of 2022.[6][7] It is partly inspired by the history of mixed children (Métis belges) who were torn from their black mothers during the Belgian colonial period, to be raised by white nuns in the "Institut pour enfants mulâtres de Save".[8] The fictional text questions the colonial legacy in a broader sense, linking the life of one of these children, who became an old woman in a French nursing home, to the experiences of black people in contemporary France.
She published her first narrative nonfiction book, Le convoi, in 2024. On June 18, 1994, few weeks before the end of the genocide against the Tutsi, she managed to escape out of Rwanda with a convoy of the humanitarian organization Terre des Hommes. This journey was filmed by a BBC crew including Fergal Keane. In Le convoi, Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse mixes autobiography and essay. She describes the long investigation she carried out into archive in search of other survivors, humanitarian workers and journalists, as well the quest for an image of her and her mother crossing the border. She also questions the role of the western narrative of the genocide and the importance of survivors being able to access to archives and to tell their own stories.[9] Le convoi was praised by the french media, rated in the list of favorite books 2024 of Télérama,[10] and ranked best book of the year in summer 2024 by Les Inrockuptibles.[11]
Works
editShort stories
edit- Ejo, La Cheminante, 2015
- Lézardes, La Cheminante, 2017
- Ejo - Lézardes et autres nouvelles, Autrement, 2020
Novels
edit- Tous tes enfants dispersés, Autrement, 2019 J'ai Lu, 2021
- English translation: All Your Children, Scattered, translated by Alison Anderson, Europa Editions UK, London 2022, ISBN 978-1-78770-405-3
- Consolée, Autrement, 2022; J'ai Lu, 2024
Poetry
edit- Après le progrès, La Cheminante, 2019
- Culbuter le malheur, Mémoire d'encrier, 2024
Narrative nonfiction
edit- Le convoi, Flammarion, 2024
References
edit- ^ "Et le prix Kourouma 2023 va à… Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse". Le Point (in French). 2023-03-24. Retrieved 2024-03-29.
- ^ "Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse". www.radiofrance.fr/personnes.
- ^ "Nouvelles du Rwanda : Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse". humanite.fr.
- ^ Popescu, Lucy (2023-03-05). "All Your Children, Scattered by Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse review – invisible scars of Rwandan survivors". The Observer. ISSN 0029-7712. Retrieved 2024-08-13.
- ^ Rhodes, Emily. "All Your Children, Scattered - three generations remember Rwanda's genocide". Financial Times.
- ^ "Enfants métis du Rwanda et post-colonialisme". Jeune Afrique.
- ^ ""Les mots sauvés" de Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse". ALCA Nouvelle-Aquitaine (in French). Retrieved 2024-03-29.
- ^ "" Consolée ", de Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse : renouer tous les fils d'une vie rompue". Le Monde.fr (in French). 2022-09-15. Retrieved 2024-03-29.
- ^ "An autobiographical journey back to Rwanda, thirty years after the genocide". TLS. Retrieved 2024-08-13.
- ^ "Nos livres coups de cœur parmi les nouveautés 2024". www.telerama.fr (in French). 2024-04-08. Retrieved 2024-08-13.
- ^ "On a classé les 10 meilleurs livres de l'année à rattraper cet été | Les Inrocks". www.lesinrocks.com/ (in French). Retrieved 2024-08-13.