Odile Gakire Katese’s grandmother was killed with a machete and thrown into a latrine. The writer and activist shares this information so matter-of-factly it takes a moment to process what she has said. The point of her mentioning it is not to relive the horror of the Rwandan genocide of 1994, something she treats as an inescapable fact, but to lament a relationship with a woman she never knew.
This is the blueprint for The Book of Life, a sweet-tempered testament to the power of story, in which the performer, known as Kiki, is joined by the fabulous Ingoma Nshya: the Women Drummers of Rwanda in her own version of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. She does not dwell on the million people who were killed in 100 days of slaughter; that seems to be a grief she has processed at an earlier time.
