Synopses & Reviews
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.
Review
"...portrays the 1994 Rwanda genocide with the classical restraint of Orwell, balancing tough political explication with hair-raising personal stories from victims and killers alike." (Village Voice)
Review
"[It is the] sobering voice of witness that Gourevitch has vividly captured in his work."—
Wole Soyinka,
The New York Times Book Review"[Gourevitch] has the mind of a scholar along with the observative capacity of a good novelist, and he writes like an angel. This volume establishes him as the peer of Michael Herr, Ryszard Kapuscinski, and Tobias Wolff. I think there is no limit to what we may expect from him."—Robert Stone
"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
"Astonishing . . . [Gourevitch] is masterful at placing the unspeakability of mass murder into actual people's mouths and inhabiting it in actual people's stories."—Mark Gevisser, Newsday
"Unsettlingly beautiful . . . brilliant . . . this is a staggeringly good book . . . [It] should be on bookshelves forever."—Tom Engelhardt, The Philadelphia Inquirer
About the Author
Philip Gourevitch is a staff writer at
The New Yorker and a contributing editor to the
Forward. He has reported from Africa, Asia, and Europe for a number of magazines, including
Granta,
Harper's, and
The New York Review of Books. He lives in New York City.