Roland Rugero’s novel Baho!, first published in French and Kirundi in 2012, carries the merit of being the first Burundian novel to be translated into English. While the claim is no doubt true, it tends to underestimate a tension that lies at the heart of Rugero’s dramatic, almost epic novel. This tension concerns a disjunction between literacy and literature, and the related capacity of storytelling to transform events into the texture of social life. In Baho!, this capacity is explored through the theme of insidious trauma. Rugero skilfully transcribes this theme through the disjunction between literacy and literature—between graphic, proverbial modes of storytelling, and generic forms of narration. This contribution traces insidious trauma through the texture of Rugero’s transcriptions in Baho!