5 estante atrás

The author first wrote a book where he interviewed 14 survivors of the genocide in Rwanda. I haven’t read it, though I've read plenty of other books about it. It was only later that he thought to interview some of those who killed during the genocide. In this book, the interviews were interspersed with history, sometimes a description of interview process and how it came about that the author decided to write this one, sometimes the voices of some of the survivors are included.

The killers just came across to me as very cold, no remorse – to them, it was a job. I wonder if that’s why the book didn’t affect me all that much? I felt detached while reading it. Overall, I’m rating it ok, but for me, there are much better books about Rwanda out there. ( )

This is a seriously depressing book. Jean Hatzfeld goes into a prison in Rwanda and interviews a dozen killers from the 1994 Rwandan genocide. This book was fascinating and insightful. It explores how ordinary people can be swept up into inhumane acts. It's chilling really. ( )

This book is simply astonishing. ( )

A story so horrific I’m almost sorry to have read the book. At the same time a story so gut-wrenching I believe everyone needs to read it. In just 100 days in 1994 800,000-1,000,000 Tutsis were killed in the Republic of Rwanda. These people were mostly killed by their machete wielding Hutu neighbors.”What we do goes beyond human imagination,” reports one of the murderers. Jean Hatzfeld, a Belgian reporter, interviewed 10 of the killers. These men though fairly open in their responses, were in prison at the time they were interviewed. Hatzfeld's Rwandan translator was a Tutsi. Both of these factors may have affected their responses. This book has a map of Rwanda and a four page timeline but no index. There is a chapter at the end of the book with a half page biography of each of the interviewees. I wish there were more information about the actual interviews. This should not be the first book you read about the tragedy in Rwanda.
Machete Season shows in terrifying detail how ordinary people can go along with mob brutality. Faced with the same mentality would one have the strength to actively fight the violence or at the least resist being swept up in it? This book and “We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families”, (Gourevitch, P. 1998) would be a great start for a dialogue with high school or college students about violence and personal responsibility. ( )