Vers une rhétorique du détour : Révérien Rurangwa et la question du visage

Abstract

This article proposes to read Révérien Rurangwa’s account of the Rwandan genocide, Génocidé (2006), as a response to both colonial descriptions of the Tutsi and the post-colonial Hutu propaganda that framed his physiognomy as evidence of his supposedly abject nature. Through comparison of photographic and literary portraits, it examines how Rurangwa’s face becomes a site where the relationship between text and image is reworked in ways that shed new light on one of the most enduring topoï of genocide literature—the inexpressible.