Genocide Unbound: Erik Ehn, Rwanda, and an Aesthetics of Discomfort

Among the mounting pile of plays that address the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, Erik Ehn’s play Maria Kizito stands out for its systematic dismantling of boundaries between nightmare and reality, poetry and fact, the quotidian and the extreme. Although the play itself has received only one production to date, this essay positions the text of Maria Kizito within a larger metatext that Ehn is scripting through a series of cultural exchanges and conferences devoted to examining the genocide and post-genocide efforts at reconciliation. The essay suggests that the play’s unique discourse of violence provides a roadmap through the charged landscape of post-1994 Rwanda, in which the determination of context can be a deeply political act.