Our new programme, Rwanda’s Returnees is coming up next on BBC radio 4. The arts are flourishing in Rwanda. This richness in theatre, literature, dance, film and photography has been made possible by exiled Rwandan artists who moved back home after the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi. Many of them were born overseas. Their parents fled the start of ethnic violence that began 60 years ago in 1959. They came back to build a new home: both literally and creatively.
Dr Zoe Norridge speaks to returnee artists who grew up in Uganda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Belgium, the UK and France to discover what it was that drew and continues to draw those in the diaspora back. Why did they leave the places where they grew up for a country with such a difficult history? And what contribution have these artists made to rebuilding both the arts and the nation?
Transmission date Thursday 3 October 2019
Produced by Philippa Geering
An Overtone production for BBC Radio 4
