Writing and filming the genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda

"Alexandre Dauge-Roth masterfully reconstructs the complex web of historical events concerning the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. He explains its history, the myths surrounding it, and the official responses (and obfuscations) from Rwanda, France, and the United States. Most importantly, Dauge-Roth brings into clear focus the way artists and witnesses have given voice to the victims and have answered the call to a ̀duty to remember' in the present. Dauge-Roth's work draws on the critical writings of Derrida and Bourdieu, on Holocaust studies, and on theories of testimony, but without ever becoming a slave to abstract theory. This is critical analysis at its best."--Leah Hewitt, Amherst College.

"Alexandre Dauge-Roth is ideally suited, by background and commitment, to pursuing some of the major ethical and aesthetic questions of testimony in modernity. He combines an impeccable knowledge of his fields of inquiry with an urgency to develop a genealogy of attentiveness to testimony. Focused on the narrative strategies and conditions of utterance at issue in communicating the Rwanda genocide, his book contributes in important ways to new interdisciplinary work in critical thought on human rights."--Maria Minich Brewer, University of Minnesota.

Writing and Filming the Genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda: Dismembering and Remembering Traumatic History is an innovative work in Francophone and African studies that examines a wide range of responses to the 1994 genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda. From survivor testimonies, to novels by African authors, to films such as Hotel Rwanda and Sometimes in April, the arts of witnessing are varied, comprehensive, and compelling. Alexandre Dauge-Roth compares the specific potential and the limits of each medium to craft unique responses to the genocide and instill in us its haunting legacy. In the wake of genocide, urgent questions arise: How do survivors both claim their shared humanity and speak the radically personal and violent experience of their past? How do authors and filmmakers make inconceivable trauma accessible to a society that will always remain foreign to their experience? How are we transformed by the genocide through these various modes of listening, viewing, and reading? --Book Jacket.