Sister Deborah By Scholastique Mukasonga

The 1930s saw a vast movement of conversion to Christianity throughout East Africa. A wave of evangelical revivals swept through Uganda and Kenya. In Rwanda, the White Fathers celebrated the “Tornado of the Holy Spirit.” African Americans founded an evangelical mission there. Reverend Marcus preached the imminent arrival of a Black savior. But Sister Deborah, a prophetess and miracle worker, proclaimed that the Messiah would be a Black woman: “A thousand years of happiness for women after thousands of years of misery!” The women went on strike, unrest spread, and was quickly suppressed by colonial troops. Sister Deborah disappeared, legends arose, and she was believed to have died and been reincarnated. Ikirezi, a sickly child she had once healed, now Miss Jewels, a brilliant academic, set out to find her. She found her in Nairobi under the name Mama Nganga. Sadly, Mama Nganga was soon burned alive during anti-witchcraft riots. Miss Jewels embarks on a new investigation into the circumstances of her death, an investigation that will put her in grave danger. Will she follow mysterious matrons and agree to give birth to the awaited Messiah? Or will she choose instead to write a book to herald the resurgence of radical feminist movements?