As a book on children of Hutu perpetrators and Tutsi survivors of the marsh massacre, it is an important book let down by an underwhelming interviewing technique. Generally, speaking, it doesn't depict the lives of RPF-Tutsis or their victims. It is geared specifically towards the villages of Nyamata and Ntarama where thousands of Tutsis perished in a cruel, senseless, vicious attack by their Hutu neighbors. I wanted to know about the lives of these neighbors before the attack, decades before the attack even, how the Hutus felt picking up the machetes, how the Tutsis saw the actions of other Tutsis at the border that led to and motivated the Hutus to pick up the machetes, how the Hutus justified their attack, how the Tutsis felt about Hutus still being able to have a life with their wives and children after release, etc. etc. The genocide didn't start at Nyamata and Ntarama and it the 'rest' / 'peace' feels uneasy, as if a quiet before another storm (God Forbid). .

Writing is 4.5. The information is 2. There are no pictures of people interviewed. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC.


Memorable paras:

From where we sit, we hear, besides the yelps rising from the marches, a background sound of herons’ raspy barks, the shriller squawks of white vultures gliding overhead, ibises’ bursts of laughter, and a concert of less distinct songs, perhaps parrots or tiny talapoin monkeys, which, they say, live here in throngs. As one approaches the muddy water, the cries are lost in the din of screeching frogs and egrets, of grunts and whirs. With a bit of luck, one spots a herd of warthogs wading at the edge of a pond and, more rarely, the raised head of a sitatunga antelope swimming in the brackish water. White waterlilies are lulled by the current. Pink orchids fringe islets of reeds. There, in the sludge, lie the families of Berthe and Claudine, Francine’s baby, Innocents’ parents and sister, Jeannette’s mother, Angelique’s parents, Jean-Baptiste’s wife and son, and Edith’s parents and parents-in-law. Thousands of bodies have sunk into the Akanyaru and Akagera marshes, which are haunted now by a crowd of ghosts who climb the hills to torment the living.


“The corpses were rotting so quickly that we no longer recognized those we had struck. We came across death with nearly every step and yet we never anticipated our own or that of our families. Death became at once routine and unreal. I mean, it left us untouched. The truth of the genocide is in the mouths of the killers, who manipulate and conceal it, and in the mouths of the dead, who have taken it away with them.” - Ignace Rukiramacumu (Hutu, killer)

“But can you feel ashamed of being Hutu if that is your fate? Many people claim that ethnicity has no place in Rwana anymore, that in the future it will simply disappear. I think if we ignore such a natural truth, we distill venom that is bound to poison children from a very young age. If we bury ethnicity, confusion constantly inflames the frustration of victims.” - Jean-Pierre Habimama (former Hutu prisoner’s son)

“The killings hummed in our ears, but I didn’t think much of it. They were words without a story, which children get used to. I didn’t doubt what I heard, but deep down the words weren’t meant for me. My childhood continued carefree, because that is what life offered me.” - Immaculee Feza (Tutsi suriviror, parents killed)

“Twenty years from now, nothing will set me aprt from others.” - Fabrice Tuyishimire (Hutu prisoner’s son)

“My papa - he’s mie. I love him more than anyone else. It’s understnadable. He is respectful of morals. The priest even chose him as deacon, because his educationb allows him to read the deep meaning of the Scriptures. His neighbors live with him in harmony. They get on well in conversation. He’s very well considered because he shows himself reasonable whenever a dispute arises. No one gives him trouble.” - Jean Damascene Ndayambaje (son of Hutu prisoner)

“I am both happy and unhappy about my ethnicity and I will explain why. It pains me because my people were hunted down like prey. My father was killed, my mother has suffered heartbreak and humiliation as a Tutsi. You take no pride in misfortunes unless you are the one giving chase. On the other hand, my ethnicity makes me glad because otherwise I would have to be Hutu. I thank God that I didn’t inherit a wicked heart, a heart driving me to hunt Tutsis, to wade in mud past my knees, pushing me to seek their extermination. Being hunted is more humane than blackening your soul in the hunt.” - Sandra Isimbi (Tutsi survivor’s daughter, father killed)

“If one day my blood papa were to appear before me, I would ask him his name, the work he does, and where he lives. That’s it. I wouldn’t listen to the rest - I wouldn’t care.” - Nadine Umutesi (Tutsi survivor’s daughter, father unknown, product of rape by Hutu interahamwe at border / in Congo when mother was 16)

“My first sister asked a Hutu she recognized to kill her without making her suffer. He said yes, pulled her out by the arm onto the grass, and struck her with his club. Then a close neighbor, named Habyarimana, shouted that she was pregnant. He ripped open her belly with a stroke of his knife. I weaved my way through the corpses, but unfortunately a boy managed to hit me with his bar. I fell flat on top of the corpses. I didn’t budge. I made my eyes dead.” - Janvier Munyaneza (Tutsi survivor, Ntarama church massacre)

According to Vincent Habyarimana, a group of seven friends participated in the killin of April 15.

“Do I know if Fulgence took part in the killings? I would think so, since he went off with the expeditions like so many other men. But Ernestine’s murder, that’s a big thing...........I remember the night of the killing, on the fifteenth. Who doesn’t remember it? He came home with someone called Sylverie. They were sweating - they smelled of sweat through and through........ If that was the day he became a butcher, would’t his wife have noticed in bed? ” - Jacqueline Mukamana, Fulgence’s wife

“Fulgence admitted his misdeeds like so many others, and the judge sentenced him harshly. Twelve years in prison is a big thing.Then he received the presidential pardon......Then the gacaca courts came. We trembled like everyone else.” - Jacqueline Mukamana, Fulgence’s wife


“I felt too little to ask him personal questions about his bad behavior. The traditional respect a child has for his papa is the same as trepidation. Mo questions for my Mama either, because she was blessed to be busy by her husband’s side. And none for my older brother, Idelphonse, for fear of being scolded.” - Jean-Damascene Ndayambaje (Fulgence Bunani’s son, Hutu prisoner’s son)
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The author did a great job of capturing the lives of a new generation of people in Rawanda that are dealing with the aftermath of violence in their country.