'Sister Deborah' by Scholastique Mukasonga
'If they answered to the calls of men and the hopes of women, there would be no more hope. I know this now, the spirit will never come.'—Review #248
I had wanted to read another novel by Scholastique Mukasonga after enjoying ‘Our Lady of the Nile’ in 2019, but somehow almost six years went by before I returned to her work. ‘Sister Deborah’ is her most recently translated novel, and it was published right around the holidays. That’s when Donna and I saw the novel’s translator, Mark Polizzotti, speak about the book and his translation process at our neighborhood bookstore, Lofty Pigeon Books. It was a really interesting talk, and afterward Donna turned to me and said:
I’m glad I did.
Here’s the book’s cover:
‘Sister Deborah’ begins in rural Rwanda in the early 20th century when European colonial forces—political and religious—are in power. The titular character is part of a black American revivalist group that comes to east Africa to prepare for and to help facilitate an end-of-days event where a savior will appear on a cloud to liberate and elevate black people across the world. Sister Deborah can speak in tongues and go into trances where she can communicate with spirits. In one of these trances back in the U.S., she has a vision that is interpreted to say Rwanda will be the savior’s arrival point. This inspires the group’s African journey, where they move to live among the Rwandans and try to convert them. Sister Deborah becomes known as a healer who can cure maladies with the touch of her hands and her metal staff. This power increasingly brings her into contact with indigenous women who often bring sick children to be healed. As this connection grows, so do Sister Deborah’s visions, which reveal a revolutionary prophesy to liberate women. This vision leads the local women to leave their abusive husbands, abandon their backbreaking work and destroy the colonial-imposed fields growing:
The local colonial government and Catholic missionaries suppress the women’s insurrection. But Sister Deborah’s fate becomes shrouded in mystery. We learn this story from a woman named Ikirezi, who initially narrates and recounts her childhood memories of the legends surrounding Sister Deborah. She also recalls her own encounter with the healer. About that moment Ikirezi believes:
In later sections of the book, we learn that Ikirezi has made it her life’s work to uncover the truth about Sister Deborah, and Mukasonga crafts the narrator’s journey in an intricate and surprising way that I don’t want to spoil. It’s best to go into it cold. But I can tell you that ‘Sister Deborah’ is a fascinating novel, and even though it’s short:
There is a tragic twist in Sister Deborah’s story: The descendants of enslaved people, desperate to reconnect to their ancestral homeland, instead find themselves as outsiders and become colonizers themselves. I hadn’t previously seen the connection between the legacy of colonialism in Africa and of slavery in the United States explored like this, and it’s an interesting and challenging way to show how the reckoning with that interrelation will be no easy task. I also love how Mukasonga explores the power of religion to inspire as well as to feed into superstition. I marveled again at Mukasonga’s writing. She packs so much into her book without it ever feeling dense or sluggish—the story flows beautifully. ‘Sister Deborah’ is a brisk and bracing read that left me with a lot to think about. If you’re looking for a short book with real punch, check it out.
An opening excerpt:
I was often ill when I was a little girl, or at least more often than my brothers and sisters. Sometimes, in a moment of weariness, my mother would blame me. ‘How could such a sickly creature come from my womb,’ she’d complain, ‘when all the other children I’ve produced have been healthy, robust boys, or girls beautiful as heifers who will bear beautiful children of their own?’ Mama never gave in to despair, but fought tenaciously against the ailments that plagued me: recurrent fevers, intestinal worms, endless coughing fits, outbreaks of pimples, diarrhea, nosebleeds, temporary paralysis in one limb or another. My body seemed to be the plaything of every malady, and I felt as though Evil itself was spreading its symptoms.
Yet my mother almost never brought me to the clinic. For one thing, it was far away, more than ten kilometers from our house; but mainly, she had no confidence in the pills that the orderlies dispensed, seemingly at whim. To get to the clinic, you had to set off at cock’s crow, and even if you left before dawn, when you arrived there was already a crowd at the window, where a servant boy handed out overpriced tickets that would grant you access to the orderly and his pills; then, once in possession of this obligatory ticket, you had to wait some more, standing in a long line under the hot sun or in the rain. Once a week, two white nuns came to administer injections. Shots Day was like showtime, and attracted a lot of people to the clinic: not only the sick, but also those who came to jeer at the patients’ buttocks bared to the pitiless syringe, which an equally pitiless nun jabbed in with a vigor uncommon in a woman.
My rating:
‘Sister Deborah’ by Scholastique Mukasonga was originally published by Editions Gallimard in 2022. Translated from the French by Mark Polizzotti and published by Archipelago Books in 2024. 135 pages. $17.67 at Bookshop.org.
What’s next:
Before you go:
ICYMI: Review #247
Read this: If you’re looking to read more translated literature in 2025, or if you’re just looking for more good books to read, you must, must, must subscribe to Martha’s Monthly newsletter. Her latest edition includes her favorite reads from 2024, and many of them look terrific.
Read this, too: ‘“Parable of the Sower” Sparks a Mission’ in Alta Journal reports on how Octavia’s Bookshelf, a bookstore in Pasadena, Calif., named after ‘Parable’ author Octavia E. Butler, has transformed into an aid center for people displaced by the fires in Los Angeles.
If you enjoyed this review:
Thanks for reading, and thanks especially to Donna for editing this newsletter!
Until next time,
MPV
This sounds like it would make a fabulous addition to my interesting short books list. Short books are so satisfying for me, and I seem to be part of a minority that appreciates a tight story. (I don't like verbose writers--blegh.) Also, I just read LET US DESCEND (not shouting--no italics.) This kind of reminds me of that. Not to digress and get into another book here, but with that one, I loved the writing and character development. I'm not sure the magical elements worked so well for me. Anyway, I'm glad coffee survived this story. It didn't seem like the kind of book that would end well for the characters involved, so I at least held out hope for my survival beverage.
Gracias, desde Buenos Aires!!