We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda

We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda was written in 1998 by the New Yorker journalist Philip Gourevitch. It is a work of non-fiction about the genocide which took place in Rwanda in 1994 and killed 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

Gourevitch travels to Rwanda in search of the why and how of the genocide. The book is an attempt at understanding how a genocide was possible in this day and age and why nobody did anything to prevent it if everybody knew it was going to happen. It is a brilliant account and in no sensationalist. A must read if you are at all interested in politics, in Africa, and indeed the world.

Just hope that your country (individually) never needs the help of the International community.

                                        

The story of Paul Rusesabagina the hotel manager portrayed in Hotel Rwanda is one of the stories in Philip Gourovitch's book.

A thousand Splendid Suns

A thousand Splendid Suns was written by Khaled Hosseini, an American writer of Afghan origin who became world famous in 2007 with the adaptation of his novel The Kite Runner to a film of the same name.

Whereas The Kite Runner dealt mostly with the world of men and the friendship between them, A Thousand Splendid Suns deals with women before and after the Taliban invasion.

It tells the story of two women from two different backgrounds (within Afghan culture) and how their lives become one. Mariam is the daughter of a rich man, but she’s a harami, an illegitimate child, and when her mother dies her father’s family marries her off to Rasheed, a shoe maker from Kabul. Laila is the daughter of an intellectual and is in love with her neighbour and best friend who leaves Kabul with his family just before both her parents get killed. Mariam’s and Laila’s stories become one when Laila sees that she has no choice but marry Rasheed.

It tells the story of the two women and it tells the story of Afghanistan. I think it’s an attempt at explaining how things reached the point they have in Afghanistan. To show that it was a normal country with a normal society before the Taliban imposed the Sharia.

To read or listen:
(I recommend listening so you have the proper pronunciation of the Afghan words)

                                               

                  

book

audiobook

                                 









                           
There is a film due in 2015, read here.

By the same writer The kite runner - book and film

Kite Runner - book

Kite Runner - audiobook

Kite Runner - film

                                     










Watch the trailer: