Gourevitch reveals the stories of survivors and killers of the Rwandan Genocide, along with contributing his own personal gatherings and reflections of the event. Gourevitch takes a deeper look into the inner workings of this massacre and addresses the misconceptions and typical responses formed by many outsiders who were unaware of the logistics of what occurred. Gourevitch covers the history of the two groups involved, the Tutsis and the Hutus in order to give readers the background knowledge needed to understand the genocide.
Reviews:
"A sobering, revealing, and deeply thoughtful chronicle"-The Boston Globe
"The most important book I have read in many years . . . [Gourevitch] examines [the genocidal war in Rwanda] with humility, anger, grief and a remarkable level of both political and moral intelligence."
-Susie Linfield, Los Angeles Times
"Shocking and important . . . clear and balanced . . . the voice in this book is meticulous and humane."-Michael Pearson, The Atlanta-Journal Constitution
Powerful Quotes from the text:
“When a man kills four people, he isn’t charged with one and one and one. He doesn’t get one bigger sentence, but four compounded sentences, and if there’s a death penalty, you can take his life just once.”
“To you we were just dots in the mass…it was impossible to know who was who”
“Never before in modern memory had a people who slaughtered another people or in whose name the slaughter was carried out, been expected to live with the remainder of the people that as slaughtered, completely intermingled, in the same tiny communities, as on cohesive national society”
Reviews:
"A sobering, revealing, and deeply thoughtful chronicle"-The Boston Globe
"The most important book I have read in many years . . . [Gourevitch] examines [the genocidal war in Rwanda] with humility, anger, grief and a remarkable level of both political and moral intelligence."
-Susie Linfield, Los Angeles Times
"Shocking and important . . . clear and balanced . . . the voice in this book is meticulous and humane."-Michael Pearson, The Atlanta-Journal Constitution
Powerful Quotes from the text:
“When a man kills four people, he isn’t charged with one and one and one. He doesn’t get one bigger sentence, but four compounded sentences, and if there’s a death penalty, you can take his life just once.”
“To you we were just dots in the mass…it was impossible to know who was who”
“Never before in modern memory had a people who slaughtered another people or in whose name the slaughter was carried out, been expected to live with the remainder of the people that as slaughtered, completely intermingled, in the same tiny communities, as on cohesive national society”