READING ON RWANDA
(updated on November 2020)

WE WISH TO INFORM YOU THAT TOMORROW WE WILL BE KILLED WITH OUR FAMILIES
by Philip Gourevitch, 1998
This extraordinary book concerns what happened when the Rwandan government in 1994
implemented a policy that called on everyone in the Hutu majority
to murder everyone in the Tutsi minority...


SHAKE HANDS WITH THE DEVIL: THE FAILURE OF HUMANITY IN RWANDA
by Romeo Dallaire with Major Brent Beardsley, 2004
Serving in Rwanda in 1993 as a UN Force Commander, Lieutenant General Romeo Dallaire
and his small UN peacekeeping force found themselves abandoned
by the world's major powers in a vortex of civil war and genocide...


GORILLAS IN THE MIST
by Dian Fossey, 1983
In Dian Fossey's own words, here is the riveting account of her thirteen years in the remote
Africa rain forests [of Rwanda] with the greatest of the great apes...


PAUL KAGAME AND RWANDA: POWER, GENOCIDE AND THE RWANDAN PATRIOTIC FRONT
by Colin M. Waugh, 2004
Paul Kagame's life - from exiled child refugee, to geurilla warrior and rebel politician,
to president of Rwanda - is traced in this exploration of Rwanda's struggle for change...


A PEOPLE BETRAYED: THE ROLE OF THE WEST IN RWANDA'S GENOCIDE
by Linda Melvern, 2000
In Rwanda in 1994, up to one million people were killed in a planned public and political campaign.
For six years Linda Melvern has worked on the story of this horrendous crime, and this book,
a classic piece of investigative journalism, is the result.
Its new and startling information has the makings of an international scandal...


RWANDA NZIZA
Photographs by Gilles Tordjeman; Text by Faustin Kagame, 2005
The dream of this book - "Beautiful Rwanda" - is to assemble a definitive photo library
worthy of Rwanda in the 21st century...


DESTINY DESTINATION RWANDA
by Jackie Jura, 2006
This photo journal takes "Orwell Today" readers along for the visit to Rwanda in July 2006.


THE SHALLOW GRAVES OF RWANDA
by Shaharyar M. Khan, 2000
Khan's tenure as the UN Secretary-General's Special Rep in Rwanda began in the immediate aftermath
of the downing of President Habyarimana's plane on 6 April 1994 and the massacres that followed.
Khan details his encounters with the region's leading actors - Rwanda's soldiers and politicians,
victims and survivors, as well as some of the perpetrators of the massacre...


CONSPIRACY TO MURDER: THE RWANDA GENOCIDE
by Linda Melvern, 2004
Drawing on a vast range of new material gathered in Kigali, Paris, New York, Brussels and London,
and using interviews with those caught up in the genocide, this book provides
a compelling account of one of the last century's greatest crimes...


MACHETE SEASON: THE KILLERS IN RWANDA SPEAK
a report by Jean Hatzfeld, 2003
This astonishing account of conversations he had with some of the killers, now convicted and in jail,
offers extraordinary insights into the nature of this collective crime.
There has never been testimony like this...
"Killing was less wearisome than farming."


INTO THE QUICK OF LIFE: THE RWANDAN GENOCIDE SURVIVORS SPEAK
by Jean Hatzfeld, 2000 (English 2005)
Fourteen survivors talk of the genocide; speaking of the death of family and friends
in the church and in the marshes of Bugesera to which they fled, and they try to account
for the reasons behind the extermination; contrasting with vivid descriptions of
Rwanda's villages and countryside in peacetime.

LAND OF A THOUSAND HILLS: MY LIFE IN RWANDA
by Rosamond Halsey Carr, 2000
In 1949, Rosamond Carr, from New York City, accompanied her husband to the Belgian Congo.
When her marriage broke up she decided to stay on in neighbouring Rwanda
and managed a flower plantation (pyrethrum) in the foothills of the Virunga volcanoes.
After the 1994 genocide she turned her plantation into an orphange.

MURAMBI, THE BOOK OF BONES, A NOVEL
by Boubacar Boris Diop, 2000 (English 2006)
The novel (surrounding historical fact) recounts the story of a Rwandan history teacher
who returns to Rwanda after the genocide to comprehend the death of his family
and write a play about the events that took place there.
As a writer he must bear witness to the atrocities of the genocide.

SILENT ACCOMPLICE: THE UNTOLD STORY OF FRANCE'S ROLE IN RWANDAN GENOCIDE
by Andrew Wallis, 2006
Wallis reveals that the French role went far beyond arms deals with the pro-Hutu Habyarimana government.
Both before and during the genocide, French special forces armed and trained the interahamwe paramilitary
who carred out most of the killing.

A WANDER IN RWANDA
by Jackie Jura, 2007
Readers are again taken along on a photo-journey of Rwanda - this time in June 2007.

VIRUNGA: THE PASSION OF DIAN FOSSEY
by Farley Mowat, 1987
Virunga is the startling true account of Dian Fossey's life
based on her private correspondence, journals, camp records, personal papers
and interviews with her colleagues, friends and enemies.

NO ONE LOVED GORILLAS MORE: DIAN FOSSEY LETTERS FROM THE MIST
by Camilla de la Bedoyere, photos by Bob Campbell, forward by Dr Jane Goodall, 2005
Here for the first time, Dian's story is told through the letters she wrote
to her friends and family, set in context by a compelling narrative.
Bob Campbell, the National Geographic photograher who worked closely with Dian,
captured the unique and extraordinary images.

A THOUSAND HILLS: RWANDA'S RIBIRTH AND THE MAN WHO DREAMED IT
by Stephen Kinzer, 2008
Tells the dramatic story of Paul Kagame, whose rebel army stopped the genocide.
Drawing on extensive interviews with Kagame himself and with people who knew him at every stage of his life.
Kagame grew up as a wretched refugee, shaped one of most audacious covert operations in history of clandestine warfare,
then emerged as visionary leader with radical ideas about how poor countries can climb out of their misery.

HOTEL RWANDA OR THE TUTSI GENOCIDE AS SEEN BY HOLLYWOOD
by Alfred Ndahiro & Privat Rutazibwa, 2008
The authors were outraged by the version of events given by the film "Hotel Rwanda".
This book is the result of two years devoted to studies, analysis, research and interviews
with witnesses and participants, notably the survivors of the hotel.

THE REBELS' HOUR
by Lieve Joris, 2006 (translated from Dutch into English, 2008)
Assani's forebears had come from Rwanda in the nineteenth century, along with their cows.
Growing up in the high plains of South Kivu he'd barely been aware of his origins,
but at school in the valley he learned he was a Tutsi. It was a loaded term in those days;
in Rwanda a bloody power struggle between Hutu and Tutsi was under way that would lead to genocide in which
800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu were killed.
When the Rwandan war spread to eastern Congo and the Mobutu regime chose to side with the Hutu,
Assani increasingly found himself with his back to the wall....
and he crossed the border into Rwanda, where a pro-Tutsi regime was about to take power.

Jackie Jura
~ an independent researcher monitoring local, national and international events ~

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