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half_book_and_co's review against another edition
More than thirty members of writer Scholastique Mukasonga's immediate family have been brutally murdered during the Rwandan genocide. In her memoirs, she writes about growing up Tutsi in the 1950s, displacement, discrimination but also the few joyful moments she gathered and daily life. Through a more or less chronological approach, she manages to convey that the genocide in 1994 was not something sudden but the last step after decades of oppression and violence (with a lot of bystanders). The book, which was published in French in 2006 and ten years later in the English translation, does not end in the 1990s but Mukasonga writes about going back to Rwanda in 2004 and visiting the places her family has been killed at. She asks, how can you go on living, how do you carry the burden of having been chosen to survive?
madisonmc's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
4.0
elaineandrade_'s review against another edition
emotional
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
5.0
stefan_lennemyr's review against another edition
emotional
informative
medium-paced
4.5
An auto biography that starts in an innocent tone but proceeds inescapable towards despair and inexplicable horror.
The frame around the later part of the telling works well so both the language and form upholds the story as well as the telling.
The frame around the later part of the telling works well so both the language and form upholds the story as well as the telling.