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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 364.1510967571
EAN: 9780312243357
ISBN: 0312243359
Label: Picador
Manufacturer: Picador
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 356
Publication Date: September 01, 1999
Publisher: Picador
Sales Rank: 9783
Studio: Picador
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction.
In April 1994, the Rwandan government called upon everyone in the Hutu majority to kill each member of the Tutsi minority, and over the next three months 800,000 Tutsis perished in the most unambiguous case of genocide since Hitler's war against the Jews. Philip Gourevitch's haunting work is an anatomy of the war in Rwanda, a vivid history of the tragedy's background, and an unforgettable account of its aftermath. One of the most acclaimed books of the year, this account will endure as a chilling document of our time.
Amazon.com Review:
'Hutus kill Tutsis, then Tutsis kill Hutus--if that's reallyall there is to it, then no wonder we can't be bothered with it,'Philip Gourevitch writes, imagining the response of somebody in acountry far from the ethnic strife and mass killings of Rwanda. Butthe situation is not so simple, and in this complex and wrenchingbook, he explains why the Rwandan genocide should not be written offas just another tribal dispute.
The 'stories' in this book's subtitle are both the author's, as herepeatedly visits this tiny country in an attempt to make sense ofwhat has happened, and those of the people he interviews. Theseinclude a Tutsi doctor who has seen much of her family killed overdecades of Tutsi oppression, a Schindleresque hotel manager who hidhundreds of refugees from certain death, and a Rwandan bishop who hasbeen accused of supporting the slaughter of Tutsi schoolchildren, andcan only answer these charges by saying, 'What could I do?'Gourevitch, a staff writer for the New Yorker, describesRwanda's history with remarkable clarity and documents the experienceof tragedy with a sober grace. The reader will ask along with theauthor: Why does this happen? And why don't we bother to stop it?--Maria Dolan
Customer Reviews Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Never Again - Again and Again
Perhaps it should surprise me less that locales once mauled by basest violence are often grotesquely tranquil:the soothing splash of waves at the D-Day beaches of Normandy; silently drifting snow flakes settling in a white shroud over Auschwitz, Majdanek, and Treblinka; flowers, flags and cold observant granite bearing testimony to the names of the desaparecidos in Santiago, Chile; the reflective silence of visitors at Tuol Seng, Cambodia; the solitary sentinel of stone remembering slain students ... Read More
Rating:  - "The Idea is the Crime"
We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda
A Preventable Tragedy
"
Philip Gourevich's award-winning retrospective of the Rwanda Genocide in 1994 takes a rational look at the unfathomable and irrational.Gourevich spent many months in the war-ravaged country and talked with dozens of survivors.The facts aren't in dispute...over 800,000 Tutsis were hacked to death by machete-wielding Hutus...but the causes are.Among his conclusions: ... Read More
Rating: - One of the best books I have read in a long time
Philip Gourevitch, in We Wish to Inform You, has accomplished an incredible feat: a moral and reasoned history of an insane situation.He manages to cut through all of the misinformation that we so often hear about the Rwandan Genocide and write something truly informative.
Other reviews on Amazon have complained about his focus on the political/violent situation in the entire region, but I strongly disagree.How are we to understand the genocide without its context and without the context ... Read More
Rating: - The best, most educational and most gripping account of the genocide
I've lived in Africa near Rwanda for several years and have studied the Rwanda genocide extensively in graduate school.There is no better book about the genocide than "We Wish to Inform You.." It's extremely sad, frustrating, and fascinating at the same time.Gourevitch tells the stories so well that this doesn't read like non-fiction.My favorite part about this work is how he goes into detail about the refugee situation after the genocide, a time not as well documented as the actual genocide. It was ... Read More
Rating:  - Average, loses momentum
I purchased and read this book last year, as I have studied the subject on this one quite extensively.
This book gets off to a good start, but loses interest as the book progresses.
There is also a lack of real-life survivors and witnesses imput, which could have made it more interesting.
The book however shed light onto many of the problems and atrocities that occurred after the genocide - which I wasn't particularly savy about previously - most notablly the problems in the Congo as a result ... Read More
We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda |
