April is Genocide Prevention Month. It’s a focused period to call for a strong policy framework that is committed to the prevention of genocide. This is not an easy topic to breach, nor is it an easy one to read. I’ve selected a list of titles below that testify to the historical realities, human tragedies, and haunting imagery of genocide. For those who have survived to tell their stories may I say, “Thank you for your courage under fire and your strength to share your fight to live…may your stories be the light that drives out the darkness.” For those of you reading this, I apologize if the images below disturb you.
This photo of a Rwandan woman embracing the daughter born from rape during the Rwandan genocide in 1994. When the genocide started, the mother, Joseline, was married and two months pregnant. Her husband was brutally killed in front of her. She was raped even through her first pregnancy and quickly thereafter, which resulted in giving birth to her second daugther, Leah, whom she infected with HIV after contracting the disease from her rapists.
During the 1994 genocide, Ugandan fishermen found themselves pulling dozens of bodies out of Lake Victoria. The badly decomposed bodies had traveled hundreds of miles by river from Rwanda. Photo: Dave Blume.
We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories From Rwanda, by Phillip Gourevitch - This was the first book on genocide that I ever read. It was given to me by Maria who had read it over a few times before bestowing it on me.
Fools Rush In: A True Story of War and Redemption, by Bill Carter - I met Bill at my friend, Larry’s house in Venice, CA. Like me, he was passing through and looking for a place to crash. He gave me his copy of the book, which details his surreal experience in Sarajevo.
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, by Ishmael Beah - This is an engrossing firsthand account of a courageous boy from Sierra Leone. It was the third book I picked up. In eleven years of civil war, an estimated 150,000 people died, more than half the country was rendered homeless, 600,000 refugees (12% of the population) fled to neighbouring countries, more than 200,000 women were raped, and about 1,000 civilians suffered the amputation of one or more limbs.
What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng, by Dave Eggers – This is a harrowing tale of Valentino who has survived more atrocities and losses in life that I can’t even imagine. I became so absorbed in this book that I often missed my subway stops. Highly recommended. Please check out his foundation too.
Say You’re One of Them, by Uwem Akpan – I just started reading this book, which is particularly powerful because it is seen and told through the eyes of children. Revealing, disturbing, emotional, brutally honest. Takes place all over Africa, including Nigeria and Kenya.
First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers, by Loung Ung – This is next on my reading list. From Amazon.com: Written in the present tense, First They Killed My Father will put you right in the midst of the action–action you’ll wish had never happened. It’s a tough read, but definitely a worthwhile one, and the author’s personality and strength shine through on every page. Covering the years from 1975 to 1979, the story moves from the deaths of multiple family members to the forced separation of the survivors, leading ultimately to the reuniting of much of the family, followed by marriages and immigrations. The brutality seems unending–beatings, starvation, attempted rape, mental cruelty–and yet the narrator (a young girl) never stops fighting for escape and survival.
There are many more titles out there. Check out some of our other picks with the American Bookseller’s Association “Books of Conscience” List.