In Her Article, “How Not To Talk About African Fiction

In her article, â€Å"How Not to Talk About African Fiction: (2016), Ainehi Edoro argues that â€Å"The history of modern African fiction is essentially 100 years of branding disaster† (par. 1). She writes about the public reading’s belief that â€Å"African fiction is invisible except when it reflects a mirror of social ills, cultural themes, and political concerns† (par. 4). Although it highlights the social ill of the Rwandan Genocide, Boris Boubacar Diop’s novel, Murambi: The Book of Bones (2000), attracts audiences due to having a fictional storyline while simultaneously discussing the realistic events and experiences of the Rwandan genocide. Within the novel, Diop writes about the Rwandan Genocide, spending a particular amount of time on the†¦show more content†¦Do you believe me, Cornelius? It’s important that you believe me. I’m not making it up, for once that’s not necessary. If you prefer to think that I imagined these horrors your mind will be at peace and that’s not good† (Diop 175-176). Because Cornelius is visiting, he must not only believe the stories but he must be distressed. This affirms the need for the horror of the Rwandan genocide to be expressed in such detail by Diop. Another realistic yet fictional aspect of the novel can be seen by the act of Cornelius visiting Rwanda after the genocide in the first place. According to Hitchcott, â€Å"Cornelius mirror’s Diop’s own experience when he, along with other â€Å"Ecrire par devoir de mà ©moire† writers, traveled to Rwanda in 1998† (Hitchcott 53). After spending time in exile, Cornelius ventures back to Rwanda, just as Diop did to visit and write about the genocide as a memorial. Ironically enough, Cornelius goes back, too, in July of 1998. 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