We are pleased to welcome Dr Nicki Hitchcott from the University of Nottingham on Thursday March 8th, 5pm (seminar room F30, Hicks Building), who will speak on the work of the Rwandan writer Benjamin Sehene.
Benjamin Sehene vs. Father Wenceslas Munyeshyaka: the Fictional Trial of a Genocide Priest
The first francophone Rwandan novel published since the 1994 genocide, Benjamin Sehene’s Le Feu sous la soutane (Fire Beneath the Cassock) is a fictional exploration of a Catholic priest’s involvement in the genocide. Published in 2005, the novel is based on the true story of the infamous Father Wenceslas Munyeshyaka who, despite indictments and a conviction for crimes against humanity including genocide and rape, lives and works with impunity as a parish priest in France. Having revealed the real-life story on which Le Feu sous la soutane is based, this paper will analyse the fictional reconstruction of Munyeshyaka’s story as presented in Sehene’s novel and the ways in which Sehene submits Father Munyeshyaka to a trial by fictional proxy. In reading the novel as a fictional trial, I will suggest that Sehene’s novel goes some way towards exposing the failure of current systems of justice to deal adequately with crimes against humanity.
French Research Seminars 