Scholastique Mukasonga’s The Barefoot Woman

Scholastique Mukasonga’s “The barefoot woman” available in Spanish.

Scholastique Mukasonga’s The Barefoot Woman was translated into Spanish in 2018.

Scholastique Mukasonga is a Rwandan author of the novels Notre-Dame du Nil (2012) (English translation Our Lady of the Nile (2014)) and Cœur tambour (2016) as well as the short story collection Ce Que Murmurent Les Collines (2014). She has also written the memoirs Inyenzi Ou Les Cafards (2006) (English translation, Cockroaches (2016)); La Femme Aux Pieds Nus (2008) (English translation, The Barefoot Woman (2018)); and L’Iguifou (2010).

Scholastique Mukasonga has a Spanish translation of her book The Barefoot Woman which first came to the African literary community as La Femme Aux Pieds Nus. The book which goes by the name La Mujer Descalza in Spanish was translated by Marcela Alejandra Carbajo for Argentine publisher Editorial Empatia in 2018. The book’s blurb from the Google translation goes thus;

In Nyamata’s exile, along with hundreds of Tutsi deportees, Rwandan Scholastique Mukasonga’s childhood passed. For his mother, Stefania, there was no more truth than his children, everything he did bore their names to save them from pain. A single desire held Stefania. With an unknown voice, I left an oral testament that filled little Scholastique and her sisters with anguish: “When I die,” he warned, “when you see me dead, you will have to cover my body. No one should see it, a mother’s body cannot be exposed. It will be you, my daughters, who are in charge of covering it, only you have to do it. No one should see your mother’s body because if not, that will haunt you … will torment you until the day of your own death, when you also need someone to cover your bodies. ”

You can read the interview with the Rwandan author where she talks about her writing, the importance of her mother tongue as well as her relationship with French, and more here.

You can get a copy of the book here.


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