From surviving to living : voice, trauma and witness in Rwandan women's writing

During the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, acts of extreme violence were committed against women. This book presents a critical study of Rwandan women’s published testimonies, seeking to understand how Rwandan women genocide survivors respond to and communicate such experiences. Drawing on trauma theory, Holocaust studies and critical approaches to testimony, From Surviving to Living examines the ways in which the genocide is remembered in both individual and collective memory and the challenges Rwandan women face in the ongoing process of surviving trauma. Through close analysis of women’s testimonies written predominantly in French, and a smaller number in English, this book underlines the necessity of developing new ways of listening to the diversity of Rwandan women’s voices, in order not only to gain greater insight into how traumatised individuals remember, but also to hear the challenge they pose to conventional Western modes of responding to trauma