The book ” Why am I still afraid of dogs?” by Marie Ange Uwanyiligira, is an autobiography that describes the life of a girl (18 years old) survivor of the genocide perpetrated against the Tutsi of Rwanda in 1994, Marie Ange Uwanyiligira, through the various events in the history of her country, the Rwanda.
The writer Marie Ange Uwanyiligira –
The author tries to better understand her experience and the origin of the genocide that affected her entire family.
The book tries to tell these events through the history of Rwanda from the pre-colonial era to the post-genocide era.
Born August 1, 1976 at Ibisi in Southern Rwanda, the author Marie Ange Uwanyiligira is the 9th child of a sibling of 11 girls and boys.
She is 18 years old when the genocide of the Tutsis by the INTERAHAMWE and the hard part of the Old Government army arises on April 6th, 1994.
By an incredible combination of circumstances, she escapes death!!
This is not the case of his relatives. The book gives appalling figures of his close relatives carried away by this apocalypse including his two parents, seven brothers and sisters and two nephews slaughtered during this horrible spring of 1994. This part of the book is a gruesome description of the abject crimes committed either by the old neighbors of his family, either by other order INTERAHAMWE.
The liberation troops of the RPF arrive to put an end to the slaughter
The book of Marie Ange traces the difficult circumstances in which they and some relatives survived the organized massacres and how she finds her brother Alphonse who was able to join the RPF troops to join and participate in the project of liberation.
Another episode is described by the writer. A reorganization of the country bankruptcy. She describes the new and difficult living conditions and measures the big hole of her parents’ absence. She paints a striking picture of how she and her four sisters and brothers who survived this appalling slaughter will learn to live again in this devastated country.
Marie Ange shows how the new liberators of the country are learning the art of the reorganization of social life with activities of production and reconstruction of social infrastructure including education. She is awarded scholarship for studies in Krakow in Poland and Bonn in Germany
Lows and
This book tells the life of a young orphan who loses the last pillar that remained with the death in 2001 of his brother Alphonse, which was his precious bulwark.
From April 2001 to December 2002, she will live a miserable existence, with a psychological depression that will lead to hospitalization in a psychiatric hospital in Germany.
Highs
The meeting of Olivier Rutayisire
The gods smiled to Marie Ange during an invitation to a wedding party in Liège, Belgium on December 14, 2002. She writes and describes her future husband, Olivier Rutayisire, a veterinarian who will give her two sons and a girl.
The writer Marie Ange tells how her first attempts to bring to life her turbulent story in the book Why am I still afraid of dogs?
She owes it partly to the advice and encouragement of her husband Olivier and his friends Marie-Hélène Letombe and Christian Trouille.
It is a book that not only constitutes a legacy for its children but also gives hope to the survivors of this genocide against Tutsi especially those who are still struggling psychologically.
The Express News
