Read 19 of 2022. Igifu by Scholastique Mukasonga. Translated from the French by Jordan Stump.

Title: Igifu
Author: Scholastique Mukasonga Translated from the French by Jordan Stump
Publisher: Archipelago Books
ISBN: 978-1939810786
Genre: Short Stories, Translations, Women’s Writing
Pages: 160
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5/5

I read this slim collection of most autobiographical short stories in one sitting. There was no way that I would take a break. I was left wondering though about how a writer integrates national horror in their literature. How does an act of terror shape literature and at the end how does it impact the reader?

Scholastique’s collection of short stories, Igifu, is centred on the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Tutsi Rwandans were massacred by their Hutu compatriots. 37 members of Mukasonga’s family were killed. She had to leave Rwanda earlier, and eventually settle in France. This atrocity has found its way in all of her works – fiction and nonfiction.

This collection of short stories translated from the French by Jordan Stump is no different. Stump’s translation is deep-rooted in understanding the Tutsi people, their loss, their trauma, and how to appropriately put it on paper. Each time you read these stories, you read it not with fascination or exoticism but with empathy and compassion.

These five heartrending stories not only capture the ordeal of the Tutsis, but also speaks of roots and family and what it means to live with a grief so immense that you cannot even name it.

Igifu means hunger and each story somehow depicts that. The hunger not only for food but also for the homeland from which you had to escape. The title story is that of a child who becomes so weak from hunger that she passes out, and what the parents do next to keep her alive.

“The Glorious Cow” is about Tutsis and their relationship with their animals. It is about a way of life that is no longer present, and Mukasonga tells these stories the way it is – the only way you can by talking about life and what happened through fictional undertones.

“Grief” is a story that is most autobiographical in nature. It is about a young Rwandan woman living in France, who receives a letter containing a long list of relatives who died in the genocide. She cannot cry till she does at the funeral of a stranger.

Mukasonga’s writing leaves you with a sense of loss that is universal but somehow the one that cannot be comprehended by all. We can only imagine, sometimes we cannot even do that. As a reader, all I could do was understand, learn, unlearn, and be left with a sense of empathy and appreciation as to how Mukasonga writes through it all – with great tenacity and resilience.

Read 230 of 2021. Everything Like Before: Stories by Kjell Askildsen. Translated from the Norwegian by Seán Kinsella

Title: Everything Like Before: Stories Author: Kjell Askildsen
Translated from the Norwegian by Seán Kinsella
Publisher: Archipelago Books
ISBN: 978-1939810946
Genre: Short Stories
Pages: 318
Source: The Boxwalla
Rating: 5/5

This was my introduction to Askildsen. To the subtlety of language, situations, and to how people react. Askildsen’s short stories are seemingly calm but there’s so much going on under the safe. The characters are forever in a limbo, left to their own device, with nothing or no one in sight.

Whether it is tales of marital unhappiness, conflicts between parent and child, or the struggles of the elderly, Askildsen’s stories are all about everyday despair and life as it goes on. His spaces are ordinary – the kitchen, the park, the drawing room, a movie theatre, restaurants, and bars – where relationships begin, end, or are simply compromised on.

Nothing of significance is happening, even to the characters it doesn’t seem that way. There is however an understated longing for what is not known, love for what is not around, and solitude that is not needed.

Askildsen’s writing is simple and plain. These stories are more vignettes. They don’t run into pages and yet say so much. They also range from morose and bleak to the comic. For instance, the funny side of a son visiting his father to understand their relationship better or the title story that is of a marriage – real, tragic, and funny. The stories are a treat, to be savoured slowly. The translation by Seán Kinsella leaves so much to the imagination, I guess just how the author intends it to be. Everything Like Before is a fantastic collection of thirty dozen stories that range across the spectrum of emotions and make you want more of them.