Product Description

"To make the effort to understand what happened in Rwanda is a painful task that we have no right to shirk—it is part of being a moral adult."—Susan Sontag

In the late 1990s, French author and journalist Jean Hatzfeld made several journeys into the hilly, marshy region of the Bugesera, one of the areas most devastated by the Rwandan genocide of April 1994, where an average of five out of six Tutsis were hacked to death with machete and spear by their Hutu neighbors and militiamen. In the villages of Nyamata and N'tarama, Hatzfeld interviewed fourteen survivors of the genocide, from orphan teenage farmers to the local social worker. For years the survivors had lived in a muteness as enigmatic as the silence of those who survived the Nazi concentration camps. In Life Laid Bare, they speak for those who are no longer alive to speak for themselves; they tell of the deaths of family and friends in the churches and marshes to which they fled, and they attempt to account for the reasons behind the Tutsi extermination. For many of the survivors "life has broken down," while for others, it has "stopped," and still others say that it "absolutely must go on."

These horrific accounts of life at the very edge contrast with Hatzfeld's own sensitive and vivid descriptions of Rwanda's villages and countryside in peacetime. These voices of courage and resilience exemplify the indomitable human spirit, and they remind us of our own moral responsibility to bear witness to these atrocities and to never forget what can come to pass again. Winner of the Prix France Culture and the Prix Pierre Mille, Life Laid Bare allows us, in the author's own words, "to draw as close as we can get to the Rwandan genocide."

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #388017 in Books
• Published on: 2007-11-13
• Released on: 2007-10-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

From Publishers Weekly
French journalist and war correspondent Hatzfeld offers brief, pithy accounts of 14 survivors of the three-day Rwandan genocide of 1994, in which 10,000 Tutsis seeking refuge in churches were slaughtered by machete-wielding Hutus. The survivors describe both devastation, as neighbors with whom [they] used to chat became executioners, and the degradation of later being marginalized by Rwandan society. Announcing their presence with whistles and songs, the Hutu killers arrived regularly in the morning and left in the late afternoon, their violent sprees corresponding with victims' efforts to hide the children in small groups under the papyrus at sunrise, and to emerge from hiding places in the marsh when the killers had finished their work at sunset. Even though each account tells the same harrowing story, each voice is unique. Bringing cumulative power to what, in lesser hands, might have been a random collection of historical accounts, Hatzfeld's wrenching collection compels an active response to the genocides occurring today. (Nov.)
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From Booklist
"People not streaming with their own blood were streaming with the blood of others." In Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak (2005), French journalist Hatzfeld interviewed the perpetrators of the 1994 genocide that killed several hundred thousand Tutsis. Now he returns to speak to 14 survivors, who remember the horrifying atrocity they witnessed, from a 12-year-old schoolboy (who hid in a mound of corpses) to a 60-year-old teacher (who remembers his well-educated neighbors with their machetes). More than a random collection of oral histories, the focus is on one district, an area of 154 square miles, where in a period of six weeks, about 50,000 Tutsis—five out of six—were murdered by their Hutu neighbors. For each of the 14 interviewed today, Hatfeld fills in the background and provides a black-and-white photo. Those photos, accompanied by the clear personal voices, break your heart. The daily struggle with survivor guilt and outsiders' indifference is part of a constant connection with the Holocaust. Rochman, Hazel

Review
Dave Eggers, author of What Is the What

“Jean Hatzfeld's Machete Season, wherein the perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide spoke about their crimes, was an astonishing feat of reportage and oral history. Life Laid Bare, which allows the victims to speak, is an even greater achievement—a book so elegantly wrought, so unexpected and revelatory, that it's absolutely essential reading in understanding what happened in Rwanda, how the survivors of genocide find a way to begin again while never forgetting to bear witness. As Marie-Lousie Kagoyire, one of the narrators says, ‘[S]howing our hearts to a stranger, talking about how we feel, laying bare our feelings as survivors, that shocks us beyond measure.’”


Publishers Weekly

French journalist and war correspondent Hatzfeld offers brief, pithy accounts of 14 survivors of the Rwandan genocide of 1994, in which 10,000 Tutsis seeking refuge in churches were slaughtered by machete-wielding Hutus...Even though each account tells the same harrowing story, each voice is unique. Bringing cumulative power to what, in lesser hands, might have been a random collection of historical accounts, Hatzfeld's wrenching collection compels an active response to the genocides occurring today.

Booklist

For each of the 14 interviewed today, Hatfeld fills in the background and provides a black-and-white photo. Those photos, accompanied by the clear personal voices, break your heart. The daily struggle with survivor guilt and outsiders’ indifference is part of a constant connection with the Holocaust.

Kirkus Reviews

As he did in Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak (2005), journalist Hatzfeld provides informative introductions to each chapter but allows his subjects to speak for themselves. The collection’s devastating power comes from the no-holds-barred narratives, with additional kudos to translator Coverdale for rendering their words in spare, haunting English....Hatzfeld is to be commended for helping to preserve crucial eyewitness testimony and for sharing it with what one hopes will be a very large audience.

Customer Reviews

Easy read but good
The author puts a lot of information concerning the attitudes, fears, and unrest still prevelant in Rwanda. Survivor's guilt is an understandable emotion of the Tsutsi's that remain. And, quite obviouly, trusting those Hutus who were complicit in the genocide is a serious problem even now.

Please, PLEASE Fix the summaries.
I would just like to note some mistakes in both publisher review summaries;

(1) The killings took place over a 3 month period; not 3 days. The three month period was April - June 1994, though lesser violence continued into July and onwards.

(2) The amount of Tutsi left dead at the end of the massacres totaled close to 1,000,000. There are 'neat' estimates around 500,000, but the most accurate place the victim toll at 800,000 to 937,000+. At least.

Life Laid Bare
How lucky one should consider oneself when one realizes the suffering these poor, innocent victims of racial hatred had to endure! Faith and God and love for each other were the saving factors for each of these individuals. Personal accounts of their suffering brought reality to this genocide which, like any other genocide, is created by jealously, envy and pure hatred for other human beings. May God forgive us for such evil.