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#genocide
blurb
Dilara
Cockroaches | Scholastique Mukasonga
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31 years ago on this day (April, 7), the genocide against the Tutsi started in #Rwanda.
#FoodandLit
@Catsandbooks @Texreader

Pic of the memorial in Geneva by MHM55, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Leniverse Oh wow, it's been that long?! I remember it as a more recent thing. Or, I guess it just made that much of an impact. 22h
Dilara @Leniverse I know! I feel like 1994 was yesterday... 21h
30 likes2 comments
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Dilara
Harvest of Skulls | Abdourahman A. Waberi
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This essay collection was written as part of the “Rwanda: Writing as a Duty to Memory“ 1998 initiative involving writers from various African countries (so, not Rwandan, but not Western). They were invited to Rwanda for 2 months to produce literary texts “outside of Western narratives“. These essays feel quickly thrown together. They require a decent amount of knowledge re the genocide to fill in the blanks (not a criticism, just an observation).

Dilara Pic is a montage of covers of 5 of the books written thanks to this initiative, found on https://www.rfi.fr/fr/afrique/20190407-rwanda-genocide-romans-hutus-tutsis-bouba... , an article on books about the Rwandan genocide (in French). I have read and can recommend (as long as you don't mind clunky writing) Murambi, The Book of Bones (Murambi, le livre des ossements).
#FoodandLit #Rwanda
@Catsandbooks @Texreader
(edited) 1w
26 likes1 comment
review
Kristy_K
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Pickpick

I bought this over a decade ago, and it‘s been sitting on my shelf since then. It felt like the right time to pick it up and I‘m so glad I did. It‘s packed with history and information but in a way that‘s easily absorbable.

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Dilara
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Starting early w/ Englebert des Collines (tagged is a different book by same author) for #FoodandLit #Rwanda b/c it's a library book & I don't like to keep them longer than necessary. Englebert, a Tutsi genocide survivor roaming the streets of Nyamata looking for drinks & conversation, told his story to Hatzfeld, a French journalist/novelist whose parents were Holocaust survivors.
@Catsandbooks @Texreader
Pic of daffs for something less depressing

Dilara I typically avoid stories written by Europeans on Global South countries, but this reads like a faithful transcript of Englebert's oral accounts, all in the 1st person, with a very distinctive voice. It feels respectful of both Englebert and Rwandans. 2w
Texreader April will be a depressing month for sure. Love how you used the daffodils as a pick me up. They‘re beautiful! Glad you found such a respectful book about the tragedy 2w
Catsandbooks ❤️🇷🇼 2w
30 likes3 comments
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Lenamarcela339
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review
ChaoticMissAdventures
Cockroaches | Scholastique Mukasonga
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Pickpick

It is impossible to judge a memoir of a survivor of the Rwandan genocide. Mukasonga had escaped through Burundi, married a French man and was living in France when 27 of her family members were murdered. She is a survivor, and with that comes guilt and a desire to tell her story.
I think it is helpful to know about this time and place before going in, she does not attempt to explain the politics or landscape (I had a map open while reading)
4/5⭐

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ChaoticMissAdventures
Cockroaches | Scholastique Mukasonga
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Reading about how the Rwandan regime made the Tutsi people dig up food to plant coffee plants that the government would sell and keep the money from as I sit drinking coffee halfway across the world and 60 years later.
This is not a pleasant book but so important, especially today and thinking that I had believed that the '96 Genocide happened pretty much overnight but learning it was a 40 year battle.

Ladygodiva7 😟 1mo
41 likes1 comment
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ChrisBohjalian
The Sandcastle Girls | Chris Bohjalian
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Continuing the countdown of my books, from 1st to 25th, THE JACKAL‘S MISTRESS. Today it‘s my 15th, THE SANDCASTLE GIRLS (2012), a love story set in the midst of the Armenian Genocide. As a grandson of two survivors, this is a profoundly important book to me.

Kristin_Reads I married into an Armenian family and absolutely loved and appreciated this book! 1mo
Suzze The Sandcastle Girls is my favorite of all your books,although I‘ve loved every one I‘ve read. 1mo
ChrisBohjalian @Kristin_Reads Oh, thank you! Really honored. My mother was Swedish and loved being part of my father‘s extended Armenian family. 1mo
ChrisBohjalian @Suzze Oh, my gosh, thank you! Thank you so much! 1mo
28 likes4 comments
review
Chelsea.Poole
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Pickpick

What do the living owe the dead? How do we deal with victims of mass killings? Families need closure and people deserve to be buried/put to rest with their names in places their loved ones can visit. We are human because we have rituals to honor the dead. All of these topics come up while Hagerty describes her profession of handling bones in Argentina, uncovering mass graves of victims of the genocide there. Sobering work but important.

85 likes2 stack adds
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jitteryjane724
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“Apparently some quirk of human nature allows even the most unspeakable acts of evil to become banal within minutes, provided only that they occur far enough away to pose no personal threat.“

It was true in the Japanese massacre of Nanking, it was true in the Jewish Holocaust, in the genocides in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Rwanda, in #Palestine, and so many others unnamed. Why are we like this?