READERS GUIDE
Questions and Topics for Discussion
1. Courtemanche has said: “People say to me it’s the first time they feel Africa, it’s the first time they understand what happened in Rwanda.” (The Herald, Glasgow) Which parts of the novel in particular managed to show the situation in a new light for you?
2. Why do you think the author, a well-known journalist, decided to tell this story as fiction? Why do you think it became such an international phenomenon, published in 14 languages in one season?
3. Which was your favourite character in the novel, and why?
4. Cyprien says, “You could live only if you knew you were going to die.” If the novel asks, like all great literature, how are we to live our lives and how to die — what conclusions, if any, did you draw?
5. Since Whites are depicted as responsible for so much trouble in Rwanda, how do you feel about Valcourt’s relationship with Gentille? How does their love story fit with the terrifying depictions of rape and murder? How did you feel about Valcourt’s return to Kigali after the genocide?
6. Courtemanche draws an explicit comparison between the Rwandan genocide and the Nazi Holocaust during World War II, stating that the killers killed with such savagery because “they were too poor to build gas chambers.” Did you find this a vivid comparison?
7. How does the novel compare with your expectations of it?
8. “A few pages are enough for you to be swept away into the terrifying madness of a country” (Le Nouvel Observateur). How does the author manage to give both a wide vision of the situation in the country and an intimate portrait of the characters?
