Polizzotti, Mark

Mark Polizzotti’s books include Revolution of the Mind: The Life of André Breton, monographs on Luis Buñuel and Bob Dylan, and Sympathy for the Traitor: A Translation Manifesto. He has translated more than 50 books, including works by Arthur Rimbaud, Gustave Flaubert, Patrick Modiano, and Marguerite Duras. Polizzotti is the translator of Rwandan author Scholastique Mukasonga’s Kibogo (Archipelago). Her family was displaced in 1960 and eventually settled in France in 1992, only two years before the brutal genocide of the Tutsi. In four beautifully woven parts, Mukasonga spins in Kibogo a marvelous recount of the clash between ancient Rwandan beliefs and the missionaries who were determined to replace them with European Christianity. When a rogue priest is defrocked for fusing the gospels with the martyrdom of Kibogo, a fierce clash of cults ensues. To some, Kibogo’s tale is a founding myth, celestial marvel, magic incantation, and a bottomless source of hope. To white priests spritzing holy water on shriveled, drought-ridden trees, it looms like red fog over the village: forbidden, satanic, a witch doctor’s hoax. But deep down, they all secretly wonder – can Kibogo really summon the rain?