scholastique mukasonga – Three Percent

Five Questions with Jordan Stump

Chad Post — Tue, 15 Sep 2020 21:00:25 +0000

My plan for this short interview��Ĵ�ý�along with the ones I have scheduled for the rest of the month��Ĵ�ý�was to write about��by Scholastique Mukasonga and��by Marie NDiaye earlier in the week (along with a few other French books) as a way of providing a context for this interview.

I did end up writing something about the books, although it started with a lot of vitriol toward the Rochester Police Department, and included some things about myself that I don’t necessarily feel comfortable sharing in this space. I’m thinking that I’ll fix all the typos and post it on , which I rarely, ever use (but probably should?).

Anyway, if you’re a fan of these two books��Ĵ�ý�or of Jordan Stump’s work as a whole��Ĵ�ý�I think you’ll like this interview. And hopefully this week things will settle down enough to get back to posting more regularly again.

How did you come to Igifu��and/or��That Time of Year?

I��Ĵ�ý�ve been delightedly reading and teaching NDiaye��Ĵ�ý�s books since the early nineties; it took me a while to begin translating her (in part because my early attempts were so unworthy of her beautiful writing that I simply gave up). I ended up translating several of her later books, but my mind kept going back to her earlier work, which is undertranslated and vastly underrated in this country; I thought particularly of That Time of Year, which I read when it first came out, way back in 1994 or thereabouts. I was utterly thrilled when Two Lines agreed to let me bring it, at last, to the American reader.

Why should people read these books?

Because they��Ĵ�ý�re beautiful, in two very different ways (��Ĵ�ý�beauty��Ĵ�ý� being defined rather broadly here). There are of course many other reasons, but for me that��Ĵ�ý�s always the only one that really matters.

What did you learn in the process of translating these books? (Or, how did you grow as a translator by working on them?)

Not so much a matter of learning as of confirmation, I guess: the glorious power of endless revision. Both Igifu and That Time of Year eluded me a bit in my first drafts; in both cases, once again, I saw that the way through obstacles in translation is long, drawn-out, constant rethinking and reconsideration. The more I translate, the more I��Ĵ�ý�m amazed at what a translation can do as long as it��Ĵ�ý�s given enough time and enough thought to develop.

What specific elements of style/structure/voice were the most challenging/rewarding about these projects?

In both cases, I think the challenge is not running roughshod over the delicate balance of the text. Both NDiaye and Mukasonga have understated voices, though they��Ĵ�ý�re not understated in the same way��Ĵ�ý�the kind of voices that can be disfigured by an overly ��Ĵ�ý�poetic��Ĵ�ý� translation, but that can easily turn flat if they��Ĵ�ý�re rendered too plainly. Letting the voice come through as itself, not as something I can turn it into: that��Ĵ�ý�s always the challenge of translation, and with writers whose voices I particularly love it��Ĵ�ý�s particularly urgent to get it right.

If someone loved Igifu/That Time of Year, what would you��recommend they read next?

I don��Ĵ�ý�t mean this to be a facile answer: these are both writers whose work grows richer the more you read of it��Ĵ�ý�so read more NDiaye and more Mukasonga!

Why This Book Should Win – Our Lady of the Nile by Guest Critic Nick DiMartino

Monica Carter — Thu, 23 Apr 2015 10:00:00 +0000

Nick DiMartino, Nick’s Picks, University Book Store, Seattle, Wash.

– Scholastique Mukasonga, Translated from the French by Melanie Mauthner, Rwanda
Archipelago Books

Scholastique Mukasonga��Ĵ�ý�s entertaining first novel about a girls��Ĵ�ý� school in Rwanda in 1993-1994 is far more than just a microcosm of the bloodbath to come. Our Lady of the Nile is written with the glee of storytelling and plenty of humor, depicting the whole Rwandan conflict in some very human teenagers. The titular Our Lady of the Nile is a four-story lycée located very close to the source of the Nile River, presided over by the black Madonna, a statue of the Virgin Mary that��Ĵ�ý�s been repainted. The isolated, high-altitude school was built in 1953 just as Rwanda gained independence. There the girls remain virgins ��Ĵ�ý� or, at least, avoid getting pregnant.

Next door to the school is the neglected coffee plantation of Fontenaille, the crazy, solitary European who organizes digs for bones and is notorious for sketching the girls. Convinced that the beautiful Tutsi are descended from the empire of the black pharaohs, he tells Veronica, the most beautiful student, and her best friend Virginia that they are the return of Isis and Candace. When he shows them the Egyptian temple in his garden built over the bones of an ancient Queen, the awakened Queen��Ĵ�ý�s spirit begins to seek refuge in Virginia��Ĵ�ý�s dreams.

The plantation owner isn��Ĵ�ý�t the only danger. The treacherous chaplain who heads the Catholic Relief Services sets aside the most beautiful donated dresses for his favorite students. His gifts require undressing in front of him. Girls at the lycée are not allowed to speak Swahili, the language of Muhammad. They are forced to eat white people��Ĵ�ý�s food, which usually comes in cans. Heated tribal rivalries flare over competing methods for cooking bananas. The sixth-grade girls split into cliques based on those with breasts and those without.

The novel is a chain of interrelated stories featuring a different girl at the center of each chapter, with the same recurring ensemble of students throughout. Most dangerous is Gloriosa, a militant Hutu student prone to politician-type speeches who pries into everyone��Ĵ�ý�s business as the watchful eye of the Party. Gloriosa decides to de-Tutsify the statue of the black Madonna by breaking off its nose in the night and reshaping out of clay a true Rwandan majority nose. Immaculée arrives on her boyfriend��Ĵ�ý�s motorbike, and goes to the ancient woman who talks to the rain for a love spell to make him faithful. Frida is courted by the Ambassador from Zaire and becomes his ��Ĵ�ý�unofficial fiancée��Ĵ�ý� until she gets pregnant before the marriage can take place.

Mukasonga is a playful author, and a chuckling good humor pervades the book. Her deliciously limpid, melodious style makes Rwandan daily life vividly accessible. It��Ĵ�ý�s a total immersion in a way of life with its own customs and morality, with a handful of comical and compelling schoolgirls swept up in the divisive hatred of a nation, confused and vulnerable and just being teenagers. Mukasonga expertly draws together all her threads and stories in the climactic sequences to create a skilfully-orchestrated vision, both loving and fearful, of her beloved homeland ripped apart by vicious racial hatred.