It’s International Women’s Day today, and it only seemed right that we celebrate some of the inspirational female authors we have here at Biteback and The Robson Press, because we really do have some fantastic ladies on our books. Some of them have excelled in their male dominated fields, some of them have overcome great personal losses, and some of them have worked tirelessly to help others. In a series of blogs throughout the day we will celebrate some of them.
Mary K. Blewitt
Up to a million Rwandan Tutsi were murdered by Hutu militias during the Rwandan genocide in 1994. Fifty members of Mary Kayitesi Blewitt's family were among them. To try to make sense of what had happened, Mary undertook voluntary work, believing that she had been allowed to survive in order to help others like her. She became a figure of trust with survivors seeking her out to tell their own stories of atrocity and survival. In her book, You Alone May Live, Mary tells a tale of grief and survival in the face of unimaginable trauma. It traces the arc of Mary's own extraordinary journey from a childhood in exile in Burundi, Tanzania and Uganda, to trying to come to terms with the loss of her family in the Rwandan genocide, to setting up the Survivors Fund (SURF), a charity providing aid to Rwandan survivors. She received a Woman of the Year award in 2004 and received the Order of the British Empire in recognition of her work for charity.