I’m so sad. This book hurts my heart. Mukasonga, sent from Rwanda to Burundi with her brother, chosen to be the ones who survive. What a weight placed upon her. How must one deal with that? Lists of the dead, bodies never found. My daughter watches Pokemon or plays in the yard, unimaginable to her another world where by seven she’s been uprooted, vilified, chased, cowering in fear by the side of the road while soldiers throw grenades in her direction.
You can’t rate a book like this — a book that gives witness, a book that gives a paper grave to Mukasonga’s family, most killed in the Rwandan genocide of 1994, slaughtered after decades of persecution. You can’t say Oh the writing was [adjective] or The imagery was [adjective] or anything that one generally says in a book review. How could you? On a book to document the existence of people whose existence was negated, whose existence was attempted to be erased? And what if you were the one chosen to survive, to keep the memory alive?
…whether after Auschwitz you can go on living — especially whether one who escaped by accident, one who by rights should have been killed, may go on living — Theodor Adorno
To go on living. The weight of survival. The weight of the dead.
I’m so sorry.
Cockroaches by Scholastique Mukasonga went on sale October 4, 2016.
I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.