Écrire L'Indicible: Pour une Étude du Témoignage de Yolande Mukagasana

This study focuses on the trilogy of Yolande Mukagasana, a survivor of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda: La mort ne veut pas de moi (1997), N'aie pas peur de savoir (1999) and Les Blessures du silence (2001). The reading of Mukagasana's works about genocide raises the question of the unspeakable. On the one hand, the language struggles to express the witness’s suffering. On the other hand, the experience of the genocide does not have landmarks for the witness who undertakes the task to tell her story. The topic addressed in the second chapter of this thesis is about the difficulty and the urgency to testify which prompt the witness to use different discursive strategies to approach the horror and convince the reader of the truth of her story. The analysis confirms with examples that the literary testimony does not use less literary devices than fictional texts. The third chapter addresses the preservation of the memory of the genocide and its victims. It also talks about justice that has to punish the perpetrators of the greatest crime against humanity. The thesis wraps up by looking at the cathartic function of the testimony.

Department dc:contributor.department

French

Year dc:date.issued

2012

Author dc:creator

• Muligo, Emmanuel

Advisors dc:contributor.supervisor

• Semujanga, Josias
• Bénard, Johanne

• Horreur
• Irrepresentable
• Temoignage, Indicible
• Impensable
• Inconcevable
• Genocide

Language dc:language.iso

fra

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1974/7466

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:queensu.scholaris.ca:1974/7466