Description

Deogratias is just a boy. Bénigne is just a girl. They're teenagers like teenagers everywhere, only he is a Hutu, and she is a Tutsi - so say their ID cards. In 1994, Rwanda was the site of a swift and gruesome genocide; the world watched and did nothing. In less than a hundred days, eight hundred thousand human beings were hacked to death. Stassen's interweaving of the aftermath of the genocide and the events leading up to it gives powerful expression to the unspeakable, indescribable experience of ordinary Hutus caught up in the violence. Winner of the Glyph Award.