NOT MY TIME TO DIE

BOOK DESCRIPTION

Yolande Mukagasana is a Rwandan nurse and mother of three children who likes wearing jeans and designer glasses. She runs her own clinic in Nyamirambo and is planning a party for her wedding anniversary. But when genocide starts everything changes. Targeted because she’s a successful woman and a Tutsi, she flees for her life.

This gripping memoir describes the betrayal of friends and help that comes from surprising places. Quick-witted and courageous, Yolande never loses hope she will find her children alive.

REVIEWS

‘This book was one of the first literary testimonies that I read in French about Rwanda. I found it profoundly moving — both realistic and introspective. Thanks to this beautiful translation, it is at long last available to the English-speaking public.’ – Véronique Tadjo

‘Reading Yolande Mukagasana’s book in French at the age of fifteen changed my life. I realized that genocide is not a mass crime but a single murder repeated hundreds of thousands of times. With this testimony the genocide is no longer just a historical event, it is instead the story of a woman, a mother, a Tutsi. And this is what makes Yolande’s account universal.’ – Gaël Faye

“Reading Not My Time to Die was an unsettling experience. I both
loved and hated following Yolande in her excruciatingly long journey to
safety in this beautifully written memoir. As someone who knew too
little about the genocide against the Tutsi, reading it made me want to
understand how such an abhorrent event could ever come about. This text
is an intense, but exceptional, introduction to the history of the
genocide, and I would recommend it to everyone. The 2019 English
translation is skillfully executed and finally gives the English-speaking world access to Yolande Mukagasana’s memoir, originally published in French more than two decades ago.” – Kiera Fields, Africa in Words