Memory for the Masses? Authorship, Editorship and Publication Strategies of Rwandan Genocide Survivor Testimonies

This research will undertake a sustained analysis of survivor testimonies arising from the Rwandan genocide of 1994, during which approximately 1,000,000 Tutsis lost their lives at the hands of Hutus in the space of 100 days. The years following 1994 witnessed an emergence of Rwandan survivor testimonies alongside fictional works based on survivor accounts of the genocide. However, the situation surrounding the compiling and dissemination of survivor testimonies is a complex one, necessitating a balancing act between the competing demands of corporate pressure and domestic legal constraints. With no domestic publishing infrastructure, French-speaking Rwandan genocide survivors rely overwhelmingly on Francophone publishing houses for their voices to reach the outside world. As such, European authors have either compiled or co-edited the majority of them. Further compounding the communication of survivors' accounts, the Rwandan government imposes systematic censorship to prevent any contradiction of their apodictic success story of reconciliation. In light of this situation pertaining to the dissemination of testimonies, the principal focus of my research will be to examine the field of testimony publishing alongside the competing demands made on the literary field that shape and influence published testimonies.