We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda - Softcover

Philip Gourevitch

4.21

34,224 ratings by Goodreads

9780330371216: We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0330371215 ISBN 13: 9780330371216

Publisher: Picador, 2000

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'I know few books, fiction or non-fiction, as compelling as Philip Gourevitch's account of the Rwandan genocide' Sebastian Junger, author of The Perfect Storm 'Like the greatest war reporters, Philip Gourevitch raises the human banner in hell's mouth ...This volume establishes him as the peer of Michael Herr, there is no limit to what we may expect from him' Robert Stone 'Magnificent, terrifying ...Gourevitch's account is factual, unemotional and utterly gut-wrenching ...The great achievement of his book is that it allows us to imagine this unimaginable crime ...and those who stood by, human beings all' Irish Times 'A sparkling jewel that shone no matter what angle you looked at it from' Amanda Foreman 'Gourevitch constructs a powerful indictment against international inaction ...In his meticulous journalistic reconstruction he drives home the point that this is a history like any other ...It is also a stark rebuttal of those who have tried to separate what happened in Nazi Germany and what happened in central Africa half a century later' Observer 'Philip Gourevitch has written the book which is the key to these dramatic and terrifying events ...Should be compulsory reading ...for all UN officials involved in peace-keeping operations and humanitarian aid, from the Secretary General on down' Guardian

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Review:

"Hutus kill Tutsis, then Tutsis kill Hutus--if that's really all there is to it, then no wonder we can't be bothered with it," Philip Gourevitch writes, imagining the response of somebody in a country far from the ethnic strife and mass killings of Rwanda. But the situation is not so simple, and in this complex and wrenching book, he explains why the Rwandan genocide should not be written off as just another tribal dispute.

The "stories" in this book's subtitle are both the author's, as he repeatedly visits this tiny country in an attempt to make sense of what has happened, and those of the people he interviews. These include a Tutsi doctor who has seen much of her family killed over decades of Tutsi oppression, a Schindleresque hotel manager who hid hundreds of refugees from certain death, and a Rwandan bishop who has been accused of supporting the slaughter of Tutsi schoolchildren, and can only answer these charges by saying, "What could I do?" Gourevitch, a staff writer for the New Yorker, describes Rwanda's history with remarkable clarity and documents the experience of tragedy with a sober grace. The reader will ask along with the author: Why does this happen? And why don't we bother to stop it? --Maria Dolan

From the Publisher:

"A staggeringly good book...Gourevitch's beautiful writing drives you deep into Rwanda, his brilliant reportage tells you everything that can be seen from an event beyond imagining or explaining...He drives you, in fact, right up against the limits of what a book can do." --Tom Engelhardt, Philadelphia Inquirer

"[It is the] sobering voice of witness that Gourevitch has vividly captured in his work." --Wole Soyinka, The New York Times Book Review

"I know of few books, fiction or non-fiction, as compelling as Philip Gourevitch's account of the Rwandan genocide....As a journalist [Gourevitch] has raised the bar on us all." --Sebastian Junger

"The most important book I have read in many years...Gourevitch's book poses the preeminent question of our time: What--if anything--does it mean to be a human being at the end of the 20th century?...He examines [this question] with humility, anger, grief and a remarkable level of both political and moral intelligence." --Susie Linfield, Los Angeles Times

"Thoughtful, beautifully written, and important...we want to pass it along to our friends, and to insist that they read it because the information it contains seems so profoundly essential." --Francine Prose, Elle

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