Sister Deborah

Rwandan French writer Mukasonga (Kibogo) delivers a dazzling and witty narrative of a Black Christian cult in early 20th-century Rwanda. Shortly after the country is captured by Belgium during WWI, a pagan chief flouts the new white Catholic clergy by granting a disused settlement to a group of American Pentecostals led by Reverend Marcus and Sister Deborah, a young woman with healing powers who speaks in tongues. According to their beliefs, Jesus, who is Black, will arrive imminently on a cloud and save the people of Rwanda from centuries of misfortune brought on by famine and war. The narrator, Ikirezi, a Rwandan American feminist scholar who grew up with a series of ailments before being healed by Sister Deborah, recounts her return to Africa to interview the healer as part of her dissertation. The novel roars to life as Sister Deborah tells her story to Ikirezi, who’s tracked her down in a Nairobi shantytown. As in Mukasonga’s excellent previous work, she manages to balance clear-eyed portrayals of charlatan leaders and their superstitious followers with striking depictions of spiritual visions (the leader of a new millenarian sect in Nairobi, who might be Reverend Marcus, sells parishioners “eternity insurance” against the impending rapture). It’s a master class in post-colonial feminist storytelling. (Oct.)