We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families

Stories from Rwanda

by Philip Gourevitch

A history of the 1994 Rwanda genocide, in which longstanding enmity between the Tutsi and Hutu tribes resulted in the murder of hundreds of thousands of Tutsis and moderate Hutus by the extremist Hutu majority. Gourevitch contrasts horrific eyewitness accounts told by Rwandans with the muted responses of the rest of the world. He also assesses Rwanda's prospects for the future and contemplates what lessons humanity can learn from this hellish chapter in history.

Editions of We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families

ISBN 9780613656351	Binding/Format Prebinding	Publisher Bt Bound	Date 2003	Price None Available
ISBN 9780374286972	Binding/Format Hardcover	Publisher Farrar Straus & Giroux	Date 1998	Price $4.25	Good
ISBN 9781433203473	Binding/Format Audio Cassette	Publisher Blackstone Audio Inc	Date 2007	Price $20.57	NEW
ISBN 9781433203480	Binding/Format Compact Disc	Publisher Blackstone Audio Inc	Date 2007	Price None Available
ISBN 9781433203497	Binding/Format MP3 CD	Publisher Blackstone Audio Inc	Date 2007	Price $21.07	NEW
ISBN 9780312243357	Binding/Format Paperback	Publisher Picador USA	Date 1999	Price $1.00	Used - Acceptable

Publisher Notes

Gourevitch's haunting, National Book Critics Circle Award-winning work provides an anatomy of the war in Rwanda, a vivid history of the tragedy's background, and an unforgettable account of its aftermath.

Media Reviews

"...a major successor to the handful of great correspondents who have risked life and safety to bring dark truths to a world reluctant to know of them. Like the greatest war reporters, he raises the human banner in hell's mouth, the insignia of common sense, of quiet moral authority, of blessed humor. He has the mind of a scholar along with the observative capacity of a good novelist, and he writes like an angel."

Excerpt

Decimation means the killing of every tenth person in a population, and in the spring and early summer of 1994 a program of massacres decimated the Republic of Rwanda. Although the killing was low-tech--performed largely by machete--it was carried out at dazzling speed: of an original population of about seven and a half million, at least eight hundred thousand people were killed in just a hundred days. Rwandans often speak of a million deaths, and they may be right. The dead of Rwanda accumulated at nearly three times the rate of Jewish dead during the Holocaust. It was the most efficient mass killing since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

First Line

In the Southern hill town of Gikongoro, the electricity had failed for the night; the Guest House bar was lit by a half dozen candles, and the eyes of the three soldiers who invited me to drink glowed the color of blood oranges.

Review this book!