- ISBN13: 9780140247602
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
When President Habyarimana’s jet was shot down in April 1994, Rwanda erupted into a hundred-day orgy of killing – which left up to a million dead. Fergal Keane travelled through the country as the genocide was continuing, and his powerful analysis reveals the terrible truth behind the headlines. ‘A tender, angry account…As well as being a scathing indictment – Keane says the genocide inflicted on the Tutsis was planned well in advance by Hutu leaders – this is a g… More >>
Season of Blood: A Rwandan Journey
I write this review one week into our grief over the WTC Attack on America. Most people don’t even think about Rwanda because it happened outside America, and we Americans think that things like that can’t happen here. How terribly wrong we have been! It is crucially important, I think, particularly at this point, to learn about war and attrocities that other countries have had to live with on their shores, much longer than we have. I’m sure Americans have much to learn from those who have struggled daily with the violence in their midst. We have our share of crime to live with, and our “War on Drugs,” which is another story entirely, but genocide is truly not far from our reality at all. We just need to open our eyes and be aware of it. Too many people think the only attempted genocide that ever happened was the Holocaust, and perhaps the Armenian genocide. There have been so many others, including the attempted genocide of the indigenous Native American. Here is a colorful and powerful eye witness account of one man’s journey to tell the story of the genocide in Rwanda. The images of body parts cluttering the journey are sharp pointers to the body parts that today litter the streets of New York City. Though genocide was not the aim (or was it? was the death of all Americans really the ultimate goal here? for me, the jury is still out on that one), still, the images are similar and distressing. Read this book. Then, listen to some cheerful music and read something uplifting before trying something else as challenging.
Rating: 4 / 5
I couldn’t put this book down, it was so engrossing and filled with the words only an eye-witness could write. The author’s experience in Rwanda right before the genocide of more than a million people is both insightful and amazing. There is no better book on the subject! This is better than any novel horror story, this is real life; this is REALITY! The horrors that Africa has seen as a nation go beyond most American’s comprehension and the Rwanda tragedy is no exception. A gripping tale emerges from the pages of this book and does not let you go. Open this book with caution – once read, the contents will refuse to leave your mind.
Rating: 5 / 5
I began developing an intense interest in the Rwandan genocide recently, after reading various feature articules and op-ed pieces in the press commemorating the 10th Anniversary of the tragedy. There were countless examinations of how the genocide came about, there were merciless condemnations on the International Community’s inaction as well as numerous examinations of Rwanda 10 years after the crisis. This book is different from that in at its heart is doesn’t seek to ask why, it isn’t a strict cross-examination but because it is such a deeply personal account, it manages to transcend many of these editorials and truly bring home the scale and tragedy of the massacres.
Fergal Keane writes with a clarity and economy and an unerring eye for detail that is undoubtedly borne of his vast experience as an award winning journalist. He is not one to mince words, nor waste them and this book is a powerful and intense account as a result. But where this book really grabs hold is the way in which Keane confronts his own personal demons and reflects on how his time in Rwanda has left him deeply scarred. It is the deeply moving way in which we see him confront, internalize and eventually deal with the tragedy and its aftermath that sets this account apart.
This is a book that should be read by everyone. It is a testament to the tragedy of how hate can drive humanity to unspeakable barbarism. It will shock you, haunt you and move you immensely.
Rating: 5 / 5
After watching “Swimming to Cambodia” Spalding Gray said one line that I’ll paraphrase, “Maybe there’s this great cloud of evil that floats over the planet and randomly lands somewhere every so often.” Well, from Cambodia to Rwanda, that about sums it up because there is really no other explanation for the horrors of the genocide that occurred there. Feargal Keane has written a superb account of his journey into Rwanda shortly after the 1994 genocide. It’s a well-balanced look at both sides with Keane able to access both Hutu and Tutsi areas (albeit sometimes with great difficulty and not a little danger). The human face of the “war” so often missed by Western journalists is really brought to the fore by Keane’s insightful and extremely compassionate account.
Rating: 5 / 5
Not since Hitler’s and the Japanese atrocities in WWII has humanity witnessed the barbaric impulses of man if left unchecked. In a nation of 6million people(Appr.,) about a million was eliminated within a period of 90 days while the rest of the world stood by and essentially watched. Until I read Keane’s “Season of Blood,” I had often wondered what madness would cause neighbors who ostensibly had been on friendly relations for almost a lifetime to fall on one another with murderous intentions without clear, apparent provocation-Bosnia also comes to mind in this context. I now know that the whole Rwandan episode was not just a spontaneous act, arising out of deep seated tribal sentiments, but one orchestrated by powerful forces using the peasants as tools. The complicity of some powerful entities in the world (French and Belgians most especially using their Hutu elite surrogates) that fuel the fire that burned so many Rwandan men, women and children still remain largely unexamined. Keane’s book, achieves the dual purpose of presenting the event both in its vivid, nightmarish reality and placing it in the proper historical context.
Rating: 5 / 5