Our Lady of the Nile

Mukasonga immerses us in a school for young girls, called ‘Notre-Dame du Nil.’ The book is a prelude to the Rwandan genocide and unfolds behind the closed doors of the school, in the interminable rainy season. Friendships, desires, hatred, political fights, incitation to racial violence, persecutions are all explored as the school becomes a fascinating existential microcosm of the true 1970s Rwanda.