John Edgar Wideman’s ‘Rwanda’: an enriching short story you have to read

John Edgar Wideman’s short story “Rwanda” was recently published in the New Yorker Dec. 14 issue. It’s Widemans’s seventh piece of fiction in the publication. 

Wideman’s opening paragraph is one of my favorite for a short story. The audience is introduced to a stranger’s mysterious game which gets the reader’s mind engaged and wanting more. Wideman wrote, “Then thinks maybe not much difference between games and questions.”

Long sentences like that followed by short ones bounce back and forth in the brain while reading it’s reminiscent of our thoughts. It’s almost like a stream of consciousness but streamlined and straightforward. With all this in my mind, making the opening paragraph a brilliant and enticing one. 

“Rwanda” is brilliant as to be expected. Wideman’s writing style is between fiction and sprinkles of opinion throughout the piece. It is split into four sections that explore race and family. My favorite section is the third one. 

In the third section, Wideman writes about the “NBC Nightly News” and the laundromat, using them to speak on the separation of class between African Americans and white people. The passion in his voice, the anger, and a bit of sarcastic tone are loud, not afraid to be heard. It comes from an author that is confident in their skill and really knows their subject matter, which can be hard for some writers. Wideman does not have that problem.

Read this elegant sentence and tell me you don’t want to read “Rwanda”:

“Enslavement a terrible crime — just about everybody concedes that fact today — but all the victims and perpetrators dead, we’re told, if we ask. Not spoken about if no one asks.”