• Kibogo
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Archipelago Books

Kibogo

Kibogo

by Scholastique Mukasonga, translated from the French by Mark Polizzotti

$18.00
$0.00 $18.00
African Literature Available as E-Book French Literature
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FINALIST FOR THE 2022 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD

Kibogo’s story is reserved for the evening’s end, when women sit around a fire drinking honeyed brew, when just a few are able to stave off sleep. With heads nodding, one faithful storyteller will weave the old legends of the hillside, stories which church missionaries have done everything in their power to expunge. To some, Kibogo’s tale is founding myth, celestial marvel, magic incantation, bottomless source of hope. To white priests spritzing holy water on shriveled, drought-ridden trees, it looms over the village: forbidden, satanic, a witchdoctor’s hoax. All debate the twisted roots of this story, but deep down, all secretly wonder—can Kibogo really summon the rain?

>Mukasonga’s recounts, in four beautifully woven parts, the clash between ancient Rwandan beliefs and the missionaries’ determination to replace them with European Christianity. When a rogue priest is defrocked for fusing the gospels with the martyrdom of Kibogo, a fierce clash of cults ensues. Swirling with the heady smell of wet earth and flashes of acerbic humor, Mukasonga brings to life the vital mythologies that imbue the Rwandan spirit. In doing so, she gives us a tale of disarming simplicity and profound universal truth.

Additional Book Information

Series: Archipelago Books
ISBN: 9781953861368
Pages: 152
Publication Date:

Praise

Official dogma is no match for the mercurial power of storytelling in Rwandan-French writer Scholastique Mukasonga’s sly new novel Kibogo . . . Mischievous and satirical . . . The stories themselves are furtively retold and altered and added to across time, subsuming even their tellers as they demonstrate a life force and lifespan that mere mortals can’t compete with.
—Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal

There may be a lot of tall tales in Kibogo, but there are others we know to be true: the exploitation of Rwanda by the white man during colonialism and beyond, and the battle between the white man’s religion and Rwandan culture and beliefs. It is these truths that remain on our minds long after the fire dies down and the storytelling is done.
—Susi Wyss, Washington Independent Review of Books

Mukasonga’s most accomplished novel . . . Kibogo is a parable about the power of folklore and the dangers of forgetting. (Mukasonga plays with the tension between oral histories and her role in transcribing them.) . . . Her books offer a way for younger Rwandans to rediscover their own culture through myths and stories that have largely been forgotten.
—Kevin Okoth, The London Review of Books

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