{"id":446,"date":"2018-12-19T19:08:19","date_gmt":"2018-12-19T17:08:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scholastiquemukasonga.net\/en\/?p=446"},"modified":"2022-04-13T18:30:39","modified_gmt":"2022-04-13T16:30:39","slug":"barefoot-woman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scholastiquemukasonga.net\/en\/barefoot-woman\/","title":{"rendered":"The Barefoot Woman"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m delighted to announce you that my book “The Barefoot Woman<\/em>“, translated from french “La Femme aux pieds nus<\/em>” by Jordan Stump, is out on Archipelago Books<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Purchase \u2018The Barefoot Woman\u2019 on Amazon<\/a>|Barnes & Noble<\/a>|Local Bookseller<\/a><\/p>\n

DESCRIPTION : The Barefoot Woman<\/h3>\n

The Barefoot Woma\u200bn\u200b is Scholastique Mukasonga\u2019s loving, funny, devastating tribute to her mother Stefania, a tireless protector of her children, a keeper of Rwandan tradition even in the cruelest and bleakest of exiles, a sage, a wit, and in the end a victim, like almost the entire family, of the Rwandan genocide. But it\u2019s also a wry, sharp-eyed portrait of the world her mother lived in, from its humblest commonplaces (beer, sorghum, bread) to its deepest horrors (rape, murder, unimaginable loss). In a telling both affectionate and haunted, Mukasonga sinks her feet into this dense \u201cland of stories.\u201d Each step, each verse of her careful lament carries both the weight of her mourning and the fortitude of the myriad silenced voices she speaks for. Whether describing the dry, cracked layers of mud on her mother\u2019s feet, or the stretch marks that line strong legs, Mukasonga follows the threaded rivulet of her mother\u2019s pulsing memory.<\/p>\n

REVIEW<\/h3>\n

“Radiant with love… The Barefoot Woman powerfully continues the tradition of women\u2019s work it so lovingly recounts. In Mukasonga\u2019s village, the women were in charge of the fire. They stoked it, kept it going all night, every night. In her work \u2014 six searing books and counting \u2014 she has become the keeper of the flame.” \u2014 The New York Times<\/strong><\/p>\n

“A profoundly affecting memoir of a mother lost to ethnic violence. . . A loving, urgent memorial to people now “deep in the jumble of some ossuary” who might otherwise be forgotten in time.” \u2014 Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)<\/strong><\/p>\n

“This is an important book written for a strong and loving woman.” \u2014 BOOKish (A Must Read Fiction Selection)<\/strong><\/p>\n

“A loving tribute to a strong mother and a striking work of memoir. . . Extraordinarily, this story is at times horrifying in its content and at other times playful; lyric in its style and tender in its handling of the central character. While the reader’s knowledge of the genocide to come hangs over the narrative, the everyday events often retain a quotidian feeling; Stefania and her neighbors worry over their children but also laugh and celebrate and arrange marriages. As a literary work, this establishes a rare balance. Jordan Stump’s translation from the French beautifully conveys this sense of both tragedy and day-to-day joy. . . This is an adoring, gorgeously rendered memorial to a mother and testimony to a people.” —Julia Kastner, librarian and blogger at pagesofjulia, in Shelf Awareness<\/strong><\/p>\n

“The Barefoot Woman is a living-record document, the voice of culture, tradition, and hope as well as a representation of the history lived by a group of Tutsi during the Rwandan genocide. It is a great performance where language has the stage, where words are revered and carefully chosen.” \u2014 World Literature Today<\/strong><\/p>\n

“Thirty-seven members of award-winning novelist Mukasonga\u2019s Tutsi family were killed by Hutus in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. She was the only survivor. Her new memoir focuses on her mother Stefania, whose primary emphasis was on saving her children from those who considered Tutsis \u201ccockroaches\u201d, coming up with survival strategies, hiding places, paths to safety. Mukasonga describes Stefania\u2019s daily life in Rwanda, and in various lands of exile, hoe in hand, tilling the soil, sowing, weeding, harvesting in cycles of beans, corn, and sorghum. It\u2019s a way of life now gone. The Barefoot Woman is a tribute born of the horror of her mother\u2019s ‘poor remains dissolved into the stench of the genocide\u2019s monstrous mass grave’, crafted by a daughter who hopes that her ‘sentences weave a shroud for [her] missing body.’ \u2013 Jane Ciabattari, BBC Culture<\/strong><\/p>\n

“Ever clear and laudable…is Mukasonga\u2019s consistent portrayal of her mother as a guardian of the family and of Rwandan lore and customs in the deadly wake of expulsion and exile.” \u2013 Angela Ajayi, The (Minneapolis) Star Tribune<\/strong><\/p>\n

“The fiercest of wars are fought by so many invisible heroes. The boldest of warriors will take on hell, descend into its depths, armed with a fiery love and set it differently alight. And even though this is a threnody, it is also a soaring story of grace, of faith, family, friendship, in-betweenness, and keeping just one nightmare away from the bogeyman; of Stefania who lived beyond boundaries, including those limits defined by those who would, and did, destroy a body, but never, oh no, not ever the dauntless soul of this, the most intrepid of mothers, a woman who drank fully of life, with a love that throbs through ever word in this epigrammatic book. A daughter\u2019s lyrical tribute, The Barefoot Woman is a resonant revelation.” \u2014 Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, author of Dust<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m delighted to announce you that my book “The Barefoot Woman“, translated from french “La Femme aux pieds nus” by Jordan Stump, is out on Archipelago Books.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":856,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[23,35,41,10,65],"yoast_head":"\nThe Barefoot Woman - The Official Website of Scholastique Mukasonga<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I\u2019m delighted to announce you that my book \u201c The Barefoot Woman \u201c, translated from french by Jordan Stump, is out on Archipelago Books.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/scholastiquemukasonga.net\/en\/barefoot-woman\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Barefoot Woman - 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