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A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali
 
 
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A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali (Hardcover)

by Gil Courtemanche (Author), Patricia Claxton (Translator)
4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 272 pages
  • Publisher: Canongate Books Ltd (4 Sep 2003)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1841954330
  • ISBN-13: 978-1841954332
  • Product Dimensions: 21.4 x 13.8 x 3.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 440,943 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Review

Courtemanche is a French-Canadian journalist and film-maker specialising in Third-World politics and the impact of AIDS upon Africa. Set in Rwanda in 1994, his novel is an attempt to portray and come to terms with both the terrible social fault-lines which led to the genocide of Tutsis by Hutus - and with the plague-like spread of a disease, AIDS, which recognizes no social or political boundaries. Courte-manche's main protagonist is a white documentary film-maker who falls in love with a young Tutsi woman. This relationship becomes the vehicle for the author's impressive intertwining of the personal and the political. It's a nightmarish, uncompromising and disturbing read, underpinned by an imperative to tell things as they were (and are), however hideous, but also to seek for some redeeming human quality. A very powerful debut, ably translated from the French by Patricia Claxton.


Jonathan Kaplan, author of The Dressing Station

"Do not expect it to leave you untouched."
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Customer Reviews

26 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.3 out of 5 stars (26 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Genocide seen from within, 28 Jun 2005
By Andrea Pontiroli (Rome, Italy) - See all my reviews
This review is from: A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali (Paperback)
I read many books on the genocide in Rwanda, and I lived in Rwanda itself for a year, and yet reading this book I have the impression that I understood many important things for the first time.
What I appreciated in this book is the fact that, although the character is a Canadian, what he does most of the time is to report Rwandan people's point of view on the dynamics of the genocide. Instead of trying to mediate and explain in Western terms this phenomenon, which is what has been done by too many authors writing on the genocide, the author gives us the words of Rwandans, justly represented as both victims and authors.
Many times, scholars and writers have tried to represent the Rwandan genocide as if it had happened in a context similar to a Western one, thus making Rwandan people think and talk like Western people. In this way, the Western reader could sympathize with the victims, despise the perpetrators, and understand absolutely nothing on how such things could happen. In this book, instead, no easy readings are given of the genocide, nor can we always relate to the behaviour of victims and perpetrators, and yet I have the impression that this is an incredibly honest book, and a book which helps to understand, if one can ever understand a genocide.
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20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing, 1 Jul 2005
This review is from: A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali (Paperback)
It took me a while to get into this book as I worried I wasn't going to be able to remember who was who and therefore follow the story properly. I needn't have worried. The book is so beautifully written and translated which makes what you're reading about all the more horrific as the atrocities are reported in such a matter of fact manner. I feel the true story of the genocide is told (it's a novel but based on fact with real characters) but not in a sensationalist or judgemental way. You are appalled at some aspects of humanity then moved to tears by others - the kindness, love, generosity, loyalty and love of life in the face of imminent death really does make you realise how lucky you are. Everyone should read this book if only to understand the African people all the more and to remember the appalling genocide and its innocent victims.
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20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars interesting but brutal, 23 Dec 2004
This review is from: A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali (Paperback)
This story takes place in Kigali (Rwanda) at the start of the civil war (for want of a better phrase). It is told from the viewpoint of Valcourt, a Canadian journalist who has made many local friends there. He has fallen in love with the country, and with a young woman, Gentille. He describes the events leading up to the massacre of the Tutsis from a personal point of view. In the introduction the author states that it is a lightly fictionalised story, and that most of the names and incidents described really did happen.

Despite of this is not a history book, and so it doesn't detail the events you saw on the news in a logical fashion. This book is all about human emotions: love, friendship, anger, hatred, apathy. This makes it an incredibly powerful book to read: it is one of the few books that has actually made me cry.

I would recommend this book to anybody, whether they have a particular knowledge of Rwanda or not. The story really makes you think about people and what they are capable of, both in a positive and a negative sense. Just don't read it on public transport (as I did) as people tend to look at you rather oddly!

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars Graphic. Confused.
Very graphic. Terrible physical violence and graphic sex. Yet somehow self-rightous on it's own terms. Not offering a way forward. Read more
Published 5 months ago by TwirlySue

5.0 out of 5 stars Remarkable piece of literature
I'd been meaning to read this book for a while and I am glad I finally did. I didn't know much about Rwanda and its Civil War and genocide. Read more
Published 5 months ago by The Curious Cat

3.0 out of 5 stars AIDS...corruption...massacres: better as reportage than fiction
Set in Rwanda during one of the darkest chapters in human history the tone of this novel-reportage is relentlessly sombre. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Trevor Coote

3.0 out of 5 stars Unfotunately understated, but also an over-reaction
For me, Gil Courtemanche's book, A Sunday At The Pool In Kigali, bore a great similarity to the screenplay for the film Hotel Rwanda. Read more
Published 11 months ago by Philip Spires

4.0 out of 5 stars Dark Satanic Mills & Boon
This is an interesting novel, though not one that I will revisit. The hero, a drippily liberal Quebecois, has some sharp words for the unpleasant elements of expatriate life... Read more
Published 17 months ago by Charles Vasey

5.0 out of 5 stars Beauty is horror and horror is beauty
This is one of the most moving powerful pieces of writing you will ever come across and it will tear your heart out. Read more
Published on 19 Sep 2007 by lmhh

4.0 out of 5 stars The horror of genocide told through the eyes of doomed lovers
The pool in the title is that of a large hotel in Kigali. The two main characters, Valcourt, who is an ex-pat Canadian in Rwanda to make a film that clearly will never be made and... Read more
Published on 26 Aug 2007 by Adisham Bookmark

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Disturbing!

Set during the Rwandan genocide this factually correct novel is one of the most disturbing I have read in recent years. Read more
Published on 30 Jul 2007 by LindyLouMac

5.0 out of 5 stars The most disturbing book I ever read
Whenever I start reading a book, I must finish it, no matter if it is bad or boring or whatever... This is the only book in my life that I have not finished reading. Read more
Published on 9 Jul 2007 by Tatjana Peskir

5.0 out of 5 stars An important book about the genocide in Rwanda
Bernard Valcourt is a somewhat cynical Canadian who lives in a hotel in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. Read more
Published on 28 Aug 2006 by Linda Oskam

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