Abstract

This article examines Jean Hatzfeld’s Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak, a collection of testimonials by perpetrators of the genocide in Rwanda. While surveying popular representations of killers in Rwanda, circulating theories about the 1994 genocide and the veracity of these killers’ accounts, this article also investigates the production, edition, and translation of these killers’ interviews. In particular, it focuses on Jean Hatzfeld’s role as editor of these killers’ testimonies and Innocent Rwililiza’s position as translator-interviewer. Contextualizing elements missing from these interviews—namely, concepts from Rwandan language, history, and culture, as well as broader psychosocial dimensions both pre- and post-genocide—this article problematizes Hatzfeld’s depiction of these “ordinary killers.”

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