Theatre
L'Optimiste
Not translated into English
Saverio Naigiziki · 1954
Synopsis
Silveri, a young man from a Hutu family, and Monika, a young woman from a Tutsi family, love each other and want to marry, in Rwanda under Belgian trusteeship. Around their plan, the three-act play sets out for debate what the age calls race, the feudal order inherited from the kingdom and tradition, in a changing society. The author defended there a simple idea: a child born of a Hutu and a Tutsi woman is simply a Rwandan.
Context
The play appeared in 1954 at Astrida, at the Groupe scolaire des Frères de la charité, in fifty-eight pages. Its author is regarded as the first Rwandan writer in French: his autobiographical narrative had appeared in Brussels a few years earlier, with a preface by Joseph-Marie Jadot, and Jean-Paul Kwizera has reissued it in full. According to Kigali Today, the author intended it to promote the unity of the Rwandans. Naigiziki's work has had little echo outside the country, Belgium having done little to support literary creation in the territories it administered under mandate.
Who it is for
A short play in French, in three acts, to be read as a testimony to the debates of Rwanda in the fifties.
Prizes and reception
In Rwanda, its author enjoys a certain prestige, for the quality of his writing and his singular place in literary history.
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