Hewa Rwanda

“How can one grasp the full dimension of an event that wiped out more than a million people, in which my brother’s death [...] is almost an anecdote, one case out of a million others – a fraction whose mathematical value is close to zero?”

Thirty years have passed since the genocide in Rwanda, but Dorcy Rugamba’s book Hewa Rwanda now seems to be one of the most authentic accounts of what happened. In this moving musical reading, Dorcy Rugamba recounts the life of his family, who were wiped out on the morning of the 7th of April, 1994. Hewa Rwanda is a tale of rare power about family, culture, and spirituality – and an antidote to the “impulses of death” that continue to dominate our time.

Dorcy Rugamba is a writer, actor, dancer and director. He lives and works in Brussels and Kigali. In 2012, he founded the Rwanda Arts Initiative in Kigali, an arts center dedicated to cultural entrepreneurs. In April 2019, he wrote and directed the opera Umurinzi in Kigali for the official ceremony of the 25th commemoration of the Rwandan genocide. In 2024, together with the Rwanda Arts Initiative team, he founded the Kigali Triennale, the first edition of which took place in February 2024. On March 13, 2024, he published his book "HEWA RWANDA, une lettre aux absents" (HEWA RWANDA, a letter to the absent), a story about his family.