(Mis)Leading Paratexts: Translating Rwanda for the West

Abstract

Rwandan women’s testimonial literature provides us with invaluable insights into the horrors of the genocide in Rwanda and the ongoing struggle of living with its aftermath. Yet we must remember that these testimonies are presented to the Western reader in a mediated form. In a postcolonial context, collaboration continues to play an important role in the writing of testimonial literature. The published testimonies of Rwandan women genocide survivors are no exception, with the majority of the existing texts being written in collaboration with a Western author. The paratextual materials (prefaces, introductions, afterwords, etc.) are often the site of information about the collaboration, and also act as ‘cues’ which prepare the reader before reading the narrative itself. This article will consider paratexts as a translational tool, showing how Rwandan women’s published testimonies have undergone a process of cultural translation that focuses on the target culture. Focusing in particular on the testimonies of Berthe Kayitesi, Esther Mujawayo and Yolande Mukagasana, this article explores the crucial role played by the paratextual framing in determining how the testimonies are received by the Western reader and the implications of this for the shaping of the survivor’s story. Through an examination of the different types of textual framing employed in the publication of Rwandan women’s narratives, this article argues that the use of such paratextual material ultimately presents the texts as culturally ‘other’, highlighting the continued hierarchical nature of postcolonial relations between Rwanda and France, and between Africa and the West more generally.