Mushikiwabo, Louise 1962(?)-

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Mushikiwabo, Louise 1962(?)-

PERSONAL:

Born c. 1962, in Kigali, Rwanda; immigrated to the Untied States, 1986; married. Education: Graduated from the University of Delaware.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Silver Spring, MD. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Activist, speaker, and writer. Lycée de Kigali High School, Rwanda, teacher, 1985-86; Rwanda Children's Fund, Washington, DC, cofounder and president; Remembering Rwanda, Washington, DC, an international coordinator. Collaborator on documentary films, including When Good Men Do Nothing, BBC; Internews' "The Arusha Tapes," CNN; and Called to Account, The Last Just Man, and God Sleeps in Rwanda. Previously worked in public relations.

WRITINGS:

(With Jack Kramer) Rwanda Means the Universe: A Native's Memoir of Blood and Bloodlines, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2006.

Has written commentaries for National Public Radio (NPR) and the online magazine Crimes of War.

SIDELIGHTS:

Louise Mushikiwabo is a native of Rwanda who has lived in the United States since 1986 and is now an activist in social and political issues concerning Rwanda and Africa. In Rwanda Means the Universe: A Native's Memoir of Blood and Bloodlines, Mushikiwabo examines the Rwandan genocide of 1994, which resulted in the deaths of 800,000 people. Marking the assassination of the Hutu president as the impetus behind vicious attacks on Tutsis, the author details the first six days of the massacre and recounts the murder of her own brother, who was the only Tutsi in the cabinet when the genocide began. Mushikiwabo also delves into the history of Rwanda and her own middle-class family in the process, with successive generations witnessing British, Belgian, and German rule. James Thorsen, writing in the Library Journal, commented: "If the reader is looking for answers … more than a few will be found in this wellwritten account." A Publishers Weekly contributor noted that "when she writes directly, especially as she does in the book's heartbreaking final pages, her journey into Rwanda's past offers urgent insight." Deborah Donovan, writing in Booklist, referred to Rwanda Means the Universe as "remarkable" and an "acutely perceptive cautionary history."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Mushikiwabo, Louise, and Jack Kramer, Rwanda Means the Universe: A Native's Memoir of Blood and Bloodlines, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2006.