Achieving Nationhood in the Trauma of Ethnic Wars and Genocide in Rwanda and Burundi: A Women Writers’ Angle

This study examines the representation of nationhood in the background of the trauma of wars and genocide as embodied in two selected women-authored novels from Rwanda and Burundi. The novels studied include: Weep Not Refugee by Marie Therese Toyi (Rwanda) and Broken Memory by Elizabeth Combres (Burundi). These works convey the writers ‘vision/s for the realization of nationhood in these traumatized societies. The need to examine the representation of national cohesion in the aftermath of societal fragmentation from the perspective of women writers as embodied in these fictional works arises from the conviction that they offer alternative spaces for pondering nation building outside the governments’—initiated mechanisms that have been labelled by various critics as controlling, delimiting and fixed. In order to circumvent marginalization in decision making, some women writers have used fictional writing as a space for voicing harmony, reconciliation and peace of their war-traumatized societies. This paper argues that women’s input is of paramount importance in the nation building process. I propose, specifically, that harnessing the ideas of women fiction writers regarding national cohesion in Rwanda and Burundi is a productive exercise in the formulation of policies necessary for the realization of an all-inclusive sense of national belonging in the post traumatic countries of Rwanda and Burundi.