Not My Time To Die by Yolande Mukagasana

Not My Time To Die by Yolande Mukagasana
Sunday 7 July, 12:30 – 13:00
British Library Knowledge Centre, Bronte Room

Book launch with the author and translator Dr. Zoe Norridge. Chaired by Véronique Tadjo.

Yolande Mukagasana’s moving memoir is one of the first civilian testimonies of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, and has now been translated into English for Kwibuka25.

Mukagasana’s book was originally released in 1997 as La mort ne veut pas de moi, the first survivor testimony to be published about the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. Acclaimed by both Gaël Faye and Véronique Tadjo, the book is crucial to individuating a collective crime and understanding the climate in which such a horror could occur.

In the nineteen-nineties, Mukagasana is a successful nurse and mother of three, but while planning a party for her wedding anniversary a rupture in the tense political climate makes her a target. Marked as a Tutsi woman she is forced to flee for her life. Not My Time To Die charts her journey of guilt, familial betrayal and hope.

Huza Press launched Not My Time To Die on Friday, 5 April 2019, as part of #Kwibuka25—kwibuka being the Kinyarwanda word for ‘remember’. The annual Kwibuka event commemorates the 1994 genocide as well as the journey of reconciliation and nation building Rwanda started and continues to engage in to this day.

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Included in Weekend Pass and Sunday Day Ticket.

Image: Yolande Mukgasanaa by Chris Schwagga