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Draft:Annick Kayitesi-Jozan

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Annick Kayitesi-Jozan (born 1979 in Rwanda), is a French writer who was a survivor of the Tutsi genocide.

Biography

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Kayitesi-Jozan was born in Rwanda. She lost part of her family to a massacre by Hutu killers in April 1994.[1] Her Tutsi relatives were in Butare, and had taken refuge in the infirmary of a school where her mother, who was murdered, worked. Her brother Aimé, aged 9, her sister Aline, aged 16, and her two cousins were taken in a truck to a site where they were attacked with machetes and killed, with the exception of Aline, whose apparently lifeless body was abandoned by the militiamen.[2]

Kayitesi-Jozan was not taken with the rest of her family, for reasons that remain unclear, probably because neighbors who were accomplices of the killers wanted to keep her as a servant.[3]

Taken in by the NGO Terre des Hommes, along with her sister Aline, she was then exfiltrated to France, where she experienced anti-black racism.[4] She first lived with foster families, and was subjected to an attempted rape by the father of one of these foster families, a case that was tried in the circuit court.[2]

She studied political science, obtained a post-graduate diploma and then went on to study psychology.[2]

She obtained refugee status and, in 2005, French nationality.[3]

She has a son by a Rwandan born in exile in Uganda, whom she met during her temporary return to her native Rwanda, and a daughter by a Frenchman, her husband, publisher Raphaël Jozan.[4] Since 2015, she has lived in Uzbekistan, where her husband heads the French Development Agency (AFD).[3]

Literary work

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Annick Kayitesi-Jozan has published two accounts of her experiences during the genocide in Rwanda, and of her journey in France. In his review of Même Dieu ne veut pas s'en mêler, Florent Piton underlines the centrality of the theme of self-reconstruction, but adds that this autobiography is "a far cry from the soothing rhetoric of resilience", insofar as the traces of trauma remain very present.[4]

Activism

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She helped file a complaint against the Canal+ channel following a 2013 comedy skit "supposed to make people laugh by mocking children cut up with machetes during the genocide in Rwanda."[3] In this skit, a character sang: "Maman est en haut, coupée en morceaux, papa est en bas, il lui manque les bras" ("Mommy's upstairs, cut into pieces, daddy's downstairs, missing his arms," a reference to an innocent childish song).[2] According to the newspaper Libération, this action encouraged the adoption of an amendment to the law on the offense of negationism, which since 2017 has punished denial of the genocide of the Tutsis of Rwanda.[3]

She testifies in the documentary Tuez-les tous ! co-directed by Raphaël Glucksmann.[2]

She has founded the "Études sans frontières" association, in order to promote the access to schooling for genocide orphans.[5]

In 2017, she published an appeal to the President of the French Republic in Libération, asking him to authorize the opening of the national archives relating to the Tutsi genocide, which would shed light on the extent of France's involvement in this tragedy.[1][6]

Works

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  • Annick Kayitesi. Nous existons encore. Neuilly-sur-Seine: Michel Lafon, 2004. ISBN 9782749901756.
    • German translation: Wie Phönix aus der Asche ich überlebte das Massaker in Ruanda. Munich: Heyne, 2005. ISBN 9783453640153.
    • Dutch translation: Wij leven nog: een persoonlijk verhaal over de genocide in Rwanda. Leeuwarden: Company of Books, 2007. ISBN 9789085198499.
    • Polish translation: Jeszcze żyjemy. Warsaw: Muza, 2007. ISBN 9788374950732.
    • Japanese translation: 『山刀で切り裂かれて: ルワンダ大虐殺で地獄を見た少女の告白』 (Yamagatana de kirisakarete: Ruwanda daigyakusatsu de jigoku o mita shōjo no kokuhaku). Tokyo: Ascom, 2007. ISBN 9784776204688.
  • Annick Kayitesi-Jozan. Même Dieu ne veut pas s'en mêler. Paris: Seuil, 2017. ISBN 9782021366693.

Medals

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References

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  1. ^ a b "Génocide au Rwanda: Des excuses de la France ne me ramèneront pas ma mère et mon frère". La Voix du Nord (in French). 2021-05-26. Retrieved 2022-03-23.
  2. ^ a b c d e Isère, Karen (14 April 2014). "Rescapée du génocide rwandais — Annick Kayitesi". Paris Match (in French). Retrieved 2022-03-23.
  3. ^ a b c d e Malagardis, Maria. "Annick Kayitesi-Jozan, la danse des fantômes". Libération (in French). Retrieved 2022-03-23.
  4. ^ a b c Piton, Florent (March–April 2018). "Annick Kayitesi-Jozan, Même Dieu ne veut pas s'en mêler". Afrique Contemporaine (in French) (267–268): 289–291. doi:10.3917/afco.267.0289., at cairn.info.
  5. ^ "En sol majeur — Annick Kayitesi-Jozan". RFI (in French). 2020-04-10. Retrieved 2022-03-23.
  6. ^ Kayitesi-Jozan, Annick. "Si ma mère devait rester cafard". Libération (in French). Retrieved 2022-03-23.
  7. ^ "Décret du 15 mai 2015 portant promotion et nomination". Culture et communication | Au grade de chevalier | Mme Kayitesi (Annick), auteure, pyschologue; 11 ans de services


Category:21st-century French women writers Category:21st-century French writers Category:French-language writers Category:French memoirists Category:French women memoirists Category:Knights of the Ordre national du Mérite Category:Refugees in France Category:Rwandan refugees Category:Rwandan women writers Category:Rwandan writers in French Category:WikiProject Africa articles Category:Articles with authority control information

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