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- MSL Picks -
Immaculee Ilibagiza's Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust is magnificent, a must-read for almost all audiences. Young children should not read this book. (One can hope that a version suitable for children will be developed.)
Other than children, though, men, women, Americans, Africans, citizens of all nations, resistant and voracious readers, readers of pop literature and readers of the Western Canon, persons of faith and absolute atheists - all can enjoy this book, be moved by it, and grow from it. Left to Tell is a classic worthy to be placed next to Victor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning and Corrie ten Boom's The Hiding Place. Buy ten copies, and hand them out as gifts.
"I was born in paradise," reports Immaculee Ilibagiza. Child of loving parents, sister to loving brothers, this Tutsi girl began her days swimming in Lake Kivu and concluded them praying together with her devout Catholic family. She worked hard at school and, in spite of great odds arrayed against her by government programs, she earned a spot at university. In 1994, when she was a university student, the unspeakably horrible Rwandan genocide broke out.
It was hell on earth. Using machetes, Interahamwe killers committed the quickest genocide in recorded history, murdering, often in the most gruesome ways imaginable, approximately a million Tutsi and Hutu who refused to join in killing their Tutsi neighbors.
Left to Tell recounts Immaculee's survival of this hell, and her family's less fortunate fate.
The book's language is basic. Advanced vocabulary and complex figures of speech and storytelling forms are not used. An adolescent, or someone for whom English is a second language, could understand this book.
The book's basic language is not indicative of shallow depth. Some of the toughest questions human beings face confront Immaculee as she hides from killers who call for her by name, she deals with these questions with power and sophistication. In that, Left to Tell is like the Bible, which also often uses basic vocabulary to speak deep truths.
Left to Tell is a page turner. It moves as quickly and relentlessly as a thriller. With raw language, it depicts many close calls, including Immaculee's being inches from men who would kill her, who draw sparks by sharpening their machetes on pavement.
The book is also an emotional roller coaster. This reader did, truly, out loud, laugh, and cry, and gasp, not just on one or two pages, but on page after page, from the beginning to the end. There are no boring parts.
In short, virtually any reader can pick up this book and have a rewarding experience.
Students of genocide will find here a valuable asset to understanding atrocity. In Belgium-colonized Rwanda, Tutsi occupied a "middleman minority" status, to use the language of Edna Bonacich. Like the Jews in Eastern Europe, minority Tutsi occupied a fragile niche. Evil men dehumanized Tutsi via radio broadcasts, in which Tutsi were completely dehumanized - labeled "cockroaches" - and blamed for all of impoverished Rwanda's problems. The "final solution" to Rwanda's problems was to eliminate the Hutu. "Left to Tell" is a brief, but informative, snapshot of the genocide mentality.
Immaculee is a Christian, specifically, a Catholic. She survives the genocide with her faith intact. "Left to Tell" recounts Immaculee's spiritual survival, as well as her biological one. As such, this book is one of the most remarkable testimonies to faith that you can possibly read.
Some readers here have objected to Immaculee's stated belief that God protected her. Why didn't God protect the million others killed? This is a reasonable question. Immaculee makes clear that her relatives who were sadistically murdered were, like her, devout Catholics, good people, and undeserving of death. It is not an accurate assessment of Left to Tell to imply that the book's author's faith is so simple that she does not understand that good people, who pray very hard, die. The book, rather, wrestles with a very complex, and sometimes very evil world, and provides a beautiful, uplifting, inspirational, and challenging example - and invitation to every one of us - that the author, and her story, has deeply earned.
On a final note: it is gratifying to me, as a reader, that the most important book I've read this year was written by an African woman, depicting African family life, and an African historical event. Having worked in Africa, I appreciate the hard fate African women shoulder with their every breath. I hope that more such works make their way to us. (From quoting Danusha Goska, USA)
Target readers:
General readers
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