Our Lady of the Nile

Novels set in boarding schools have a long history, and we can certainly speak of an established and reasonably capacious genre. However, Our Lady of the Nile by Scholastique Mukasonga presents us with an entirely new angle: 

There is no better lycée than Our Lady of the Nile. Nor is there any higher. Twenty-five hundred metres, the white teachers proudly proclaim. ‘Two thousand four hundred ninety-three metres,’ points out Sister Lydwine, our geography teacher. ‘We’re so close to heaven,’ whispers Mother Superior, clasping her hands together.

That airy, complacent and comically unjustified pride is about to be torn apart. The book is set in late 70s Rwanda, but of course our consciousness is wholly dominated by knowledge of the looming genocide of 1994 (in it, unimaginably, the author lost 37 of her own relations). Tensions between Hutu and Tutsi pupils are close to the surface (especially in the extremely unpleasant Gloria); in a predominantly Hutu school, there is a quota of 10% Tutsi. Unsurprisingly, things do not go well for the latter. The tone of the book shifts constantly, from light humour all the way to (at the end) utter horror. You are never sure quite where the story is heading, and Mukasonga keeps you on your toes.

This is Mukasonga’s début novel, first published in French in 2012. It was shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award in 2016. It is a surprising and vivid approach to one of the defining moments of the 20th century, but one which seems at times to be almost neglected elsewhere in the world. Now a new edition from Daunt Books (in a fine translation by Melanie Mauthner) rightly brings it to our attention again.