The Convoy

Prize-winning novelist and short-story writer Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse's harrowing, urgent memoir documents and reconstructs her escape, at the age of fifteen, from the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. Finalist for the Prix Du Livre Inter 2024 Winner of the Grand Prix de l'Héroïne Madame Figaro (non-fiction category) Winner of the Prix Montluc Résistance et Liberté (special jury prize) Winner of the Prix France Télévisions 2024 (non-fiction category) Shortlisted for the Prix Inrockuptibles 'The Convoy is a tour de force, giving equal weight to individual and collective experience with unparalleled lucidity, dignity, and lightness of touch. But I believe that it does more, and better, than that. The Convoy represents literature at its finest from the first sentence to the last' Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, winner of the Prix Goncourt 2021 'A non-fiction book which must be recognised as a major work of literature, for here, along with the extreme violence and the story of survival in a time of horrors, is a hitherto unrecorded truth' Nathalie Crom, Télérama 'A gripping story, at once a personal account and a reflection on the indelible traces of genocide' Sophie Rosemont, Vogue France 'Bare-bones, deeply moving and crucial' Olivier Mony, Livres Hebdo 'A powerful indictment of cowardice in the face of cruelty' Nelly Kaprièlian-Self, Times Literary Supplement ------ The author was fifteen at the height of the genocide inflicted on the Tutsi people in Rwanda. She and her mother had spent weeks moving from one insecure shelter to another, surrounded by scenes of petrifying violence. Hundreds of thousands of Tutsi were killed in a period of only three months. The lives of Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse and her mother were a sleepless nightmare - until, through the bewildering courage of nuns and of aid workers, eventually a place was found for them on a convoy to safety. But even then, when their journey - hidden in the bottom of a truck - came at last to an end, safety was only assured by the presence of journalists and cameramen watching their arrival at the frontier. More than a decade later, after rebuilding her life in France, Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse is ready to begin the process of reconstructing her incomplete memories of the escape and establishing community with other survivors. She has become a poet and a prize-winning novelist, but never until now has she written about her own history. Beginning by making contact with the B.B.C. team which filmed the convoy, then by tracking down aid workers, journalists and fellow escapees and scouring archives in a search for photographs of her own crossing of the border, the author pieces together records and personal accounts to try to comprehend the chaos that overtook Rwanda at the time of the genocide. The Convoy reflects on the act of bearing witness and the value hidden in fragments of the past. Thirty years on from the genocide, Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse was able to find and listen to many of the people who played a role in securing her safety: men and women of exceptional courage. ------------

Auteur

Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse was born in Butare in Rwanda in 1979. She was fifteen when she survived the genocide against the Tutsi. She settled in France and has become a writer. Her first novel All Your Children, Scattered and Consolée, her second, were both applauded by critics and booksellers and won prizes.