Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse

Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse is an award-winning Rwandan writer based in Bordeaux, France. She is the author of two short story collections, Ejo (2015) and Lézardes (2017); two novels, Tous tes enfants dispersés (2019, translated by Alison Anderson as All Your Children, Scattered, 2022) and Consolée (2022).

She has also authored two poetry collections, Après le progès (2019) and Culbuter le malheur (2024); and a testimony, Le convoi (2024, translated by Ruth Diver as The Convoy, 2025). She has received, amongst other prizes, the Prix des cinq continents de la francophonie, Prix Kourouma and Prix Franz-Hessel. She also mentors other Rwandan survivors seeking to write their own stories.

Articles by Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse

Finding Comfort in the Loneliness of Others: Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse and Reading Across Cultures

Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse is a prolific Rwandan writer critically acclaimed in the French-speaking world; her work significantly contributes to the literature on witnessing genocide in Rwanda and beyond. Here, she speaks with Zoë Norridge – Wasafiri Associate Editor and academic at King's College London – about her early reading influences in Rwanda and France, the role of writing today at a time of heightened conflict, and how she supports survivors of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi to share and publish their stories. This conversation includes additional material from Beata and Zoë's original interview published in print in Wasafiri 125.

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