Scholastique Mukasonga was born in Rwanda. At the age of sixteen, in order to flee the persecutions she suffered as a Tutsi, she was forced to go into exile in Burundi. She has lived in France in 1992. In 1994, her family, which had remained in Rwanda, was massacred during the Tutsi genocide.
As the guardian of their memory, she has written ten novels and story collections, translated into more than twenty languages. Her books have won many prizes, including the prestigious Prix Renaudot in 2012 for Our Lady of the Nile; that book was also chosen by “The Jubilee Read” as one of the 10 best novels of the decade 2012-2022. Cockroaches was selected by the New York Times as one of the fifty best autobiographies of the past fifty years. The Barefoot Woman was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2019 and has been longlisted for the 2022 Baillie Gifford Prize. Her book Un si beau diplôme won the Prix Simone de Beauvoir pour la Liberté des Femmes in 2021. She has been named a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres.
