African Writers as Theorists

Conceptualization of Truth in Tadjo and Diop’s Writing on Rwanda

Datos Bibliográficos

ID17831760
AutoresAnna Katila (0000-0002-1190-6161, St George's, University of London, autor de correspondencia)
Año2026
Volumen6
Número2
Fecha de publicación2026-03-17
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaGlobal Studies Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 2634-3797 • E-ISSN: 2634-3797
EditorialOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1093/isagsq/ksag062
OpenAlexW7155101484
IdiomaEN
Referencias citadas53

In 1998, writers Véronique Tadjo and Boris Boubacar Diop traveled to Rwanda for two months with nine other African authors to participate in a literary project by Fest’Africa festival. The authors were tasked to write about the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. Tadjo’s response is a hybrid text entitled The Shadow of Imana: Travels in the Heart of Rwanda, while Diop wrote a novel, Murambi, The Book of Bones. The authors’ writing explores and constructs the meaning of life after the genocide in Rwanda, engaging with a concept of truth. In this article, I contend that Tadjo and Diop’s writing constructs and co-constitutes the meaning of truth as a transitional justice goal, contributing to knowledge production in the field. This serves as an example of the way in which African storytelling embeds theoretical insights that contribute to knowledge produced in the discipline of international relations. Recognizing the power of creative writing to conceptualize and to produce knowledge can help address the dominance of Western thinking in transitional justice and international relations

Conceptualization · Genocide · Storytelling · Caribbean and African Literature and Culture · Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies · South African History and Culture