The stories in Igifu summon phantom memories of Rwanda and radiate
with the fierce ache of a survivor. From the National Book Award
finalist who Zadie Smith says, rescues a million souls from the
collective noun genocide.
Scholastique Mukasonga's autobiographical stories rend a glorious Rwanda
from the obliterating force of recent history, conjuring the noble cows
of her home or the dew-swollen grass they graze on. In the title story,
five-year-old Colomba tells of a merciless overlord, hunger or igifu,
gnawing away at her belly. She searches for sap at the bud of a flower,
scraps of sweet potato at the foot of her parent's bed, or a few grains
of sorghum in the floor sweepings. Igifu becomes a dizzying hole in her
stomach, a plunging abyss into which she falls. In a desperate act of
preservation, Colomba's mother gathers enough sorghum to whip up a
nourishing porridge, bringing Colomba back to life. This elixir courses
through each story, a balm to soothe the pains of those so ferociously
fighting for survival.
Her writing eclipses the great gaps of time and memory; in one scene she
is a child sitting squat with a jug of sweet, frothy milk and in another
she is an exiled teacher, writing down lists of her dead. As in all her
work, Scholastique sits up with them, her witty and beaming beloved.