The Convoy
Interview conducted by Jean-Philippe Ceppi, journalist at RTS
Novelist and poet Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse was born in Rwanda. At 15, during the Tutsi genocide, she narrowly escaped death by leaving the country two months after the atrocities began, joining a humanitarian convoy with Terre des Hommes. She arrived in France in July 1994, where she studied political science, worked for NGOs, and taught at the University of Ottawa before settling in Bordeaux. Her debut novel, Tous tes enfants dispersés (Autrement, 2019), won the Prix des Cinq Continents de la Francophonie, and her second, Consolée (Autrement, 2022), received the Prix Kourouma at the Geneva Book Fair in 2023. Le Convoi (Flammarion, 2024), the result of a 15-year personal investigation, won the Prix Essai France Télévision 2024 and the Grand Prix de l’héroïne from Le Figaro Madame. In this poignant and restrained account, the author seeks to reclaim the memory of her survival, placing it within a collective history.
In French.
