Elisabeth Combres

This wispy portrayal of the horrors if the 1994 Rwandan Genocide misses the mark. Perhaps because it is in translation, perhaps because it is intended for readers too young to take in the horrific truth of the matter, or perhaps because the French author's account is a vicarious one, this novel lacks both gravity and vibrancy. The telling feels arm's length, the characters colorless specters. While we can be grateful for the work started in this novel, there remains ample room for a meaningful, vivid (not lurid) account of the Rwandan Genocide.… (more)

This wispy portrayal of the horrors if the 1994 Rwandan Genocide misses the mark. Perhaps because it is in translation, perhaps because it is intended for readers too young to take in the horrific truth of the matter, or perhaps because the French author's account is a vicarious one, this novel lacks both gravity and vibrancy. The telling feels arm's length, the characters colorless specters. While we can be grateful for the work started in this novel, there remains ample room for a meaningful, vivid (not lurid) account of the Rwandan Genocide.… (more)

In this brief, restrained novel, Elisabeth Combres, a former French journalist who worked in Latin America and Africa, introduces the topic of the 1994 Rwandan genocide to older children and younger teens. The book focuses on Emma, a Tutsi orphan, who—at the age of five—was directed by her mother to hide against the wall of her family home when the genocidaires banged at the door. Traumatized by her mother’s death, Emma had wandered for some time. Then, after watching a gentle, elderly Hutu peasant woman moving about on her land, Emma had approached the woman’s door and asked for food. She ended up staying.

As BROKEN MEMORY opens, Emma has been living with Mukecuru, “Grandmother”, for nine years. Unable to understand a God who would allow people to be killed in places of worship, Emma does not attend church, but every Sunday after mass she does accompany the old woman to her husband's grave. Emma believes one of the reasons that Mukecuru can walk so calmly is that she is surrounded by the peaceful ghosts of her dead relatives, not the bad spirits of the unburied dead. As a result of the horror she experienced (heard rather than observed), Emma’s memory is broken. In particular, she cannot remember her mother's face. Combres documents the young girl’s efforts to restore her memory and to heal.

The author shows us a country still traumatized almost a decade after the genocide. Ndoli, a boy whose head is marked by a machete blow, wanders the area where Emma lives with Mukecuru. He, too, is haunted. In 1994, tortured by genocidaires who wanted information about the rebels of Bisesero (in Eastern Rwanda, not far from Lake Kivu) whom his family members had joined, he told what he knew. His entire family had been killed as a result. Now he frightens people in the area where Emma lives. He wanders about and seems to be mad, especially during the first two weeks of April each year, the anniversary of the genocide.

However, Ndoli is not blind to the suffering of others. He watches over Emma when she faints one day after seeing a truck containing prisoners returning to their prefecture. Genocidaires are coming back to the area to undergo trial at gacacas (ga-cha-chas), traditional village courts. Survivors are expected to identify those who had inflicted the violence years before. Emma had recognized the voice of a man on that truck.

The climax of BROKEN MEMORY revolves around Emma’s return to her original home. She needs to obtain a document to prove that she is indeed of Tutsi heritage. The document will qualify her to receive funds so that she can attend school and to get on with life. The ending of the book is hopeful.

In BROKEN MEMORY, Combres takes a difficult topic and presents it sensitively and accessibly for young people. The book appears to have been ably and naturally translated by Shelley Tanaka, a well-known Canadian editor of children’s literature and writer of children’s nonfiction. It is hard to know how young children got along after the genocide. I am not aware of books, fiction or nonfiction, which make this their sole focus. Most of Emma’s feelings and actions seem credible, though I was not fully convinced that a young girl would be unwilling to attend church with her elderly guardian or would be grappling with questions about God. I’m not sure how Rwanda, a once very religious country, has in fact coped with God and the Catholic church after the horrors that occurred in the country almost two and a half decades ago.

This is a simple narrative told in very simple language. It is blessedly not at all sensational. While I generally admire what Combres was able to do here, I do have a few reservations about the book. First of all, it seemed odd to me that Mukecuru would not be concerned when Emma, who has lived with her for nearly a decade, does not return home one night. It also seemed strange that the old woman would be willing to allow a 14-year-old girl to travel 60 km on her own to her home village. Rwanda was, and continues to be, a country plagued by sexual violence. Do Rwandans regard that violence as so much a fact of life that a young girl's solitary journey would not be given a second thought?

BROKEN MEMORY is a valuable contribution to children's literature because there is so very little written for kids about the Rwandan genocide. (Compare this to the ample offerings--fictional and autobiographical-- for young people about the Holocaust.) Given that children's background knowledge about Rwanda is likely to be sparse, however, the book would have benefited from the inclusion of a glossary and a map. There is an author's note, but it isn't quite enough.

Recommended with some reservations.… (more)

Emma is a Tutsi, and is one of the child survivors of the Rwandan genocide. Emma was only four years old in 1994 when she hid behind a wall and listened to her mother being beaten to death, but she remembers the sounds vividly. The passages about the violence of the genocide are accurate, but not descriptive, making it appropriate for adolescents. This lack of detail in describing violence of the genocide leaves the reader’s imagination to fill in the blanks. While it is good that graphic descriptions of violence are not provided, the novel opens up the door for readers to imagine extremely scary, painful scenarios. Through Emma readers get a glimpse of what life was like for children who survived the genocide, and how they tried to piece their lives back together with little to no family left living. Emma is young, but she experiences so many contrasting emotions all at once, making her character deeply developed and curious. As this adolescent girl tries to cope she must face chilling nightmares and blood-stopping flashbacks while dealing with ridicule from other Tutsis for living with a Hutu woman. This historical fiction illustrates how many child survivors of the Rwandans genocide came to terms with the horrors of their past and found themselves in the process.… (more)