MADreads

Both sides now

March 6th, 2008 Sarah - Alicia Ashman

The books I’m about to suggest are not, I repeat, NOT, books that can be viewed as “pleasure reading.”  They are sad, they are graphic, and they will make you wonder about the whole human race in general.

Still with me?  Okay.  The books in question are titled Machete Season and Life Laid Bare.  They are oral histories, gathered by French journalist Jean Hatzfeld (and translated into English by Linda Coverdale), and they are about the Rwandan genocide.  In the first volume, Machete Season, Hatzfeld interviewed ten Hutu individuals who were either standing trial for or were already in prison for their parts in killing Tutsis; in the second volume, Life Laid Bare, he interviews a number of Tutsi survivors.

I read Machete Season about two years ago, and just finished Life Laid Bare.  That seemed about right; I don’t think I can recommend reading them both at the same time.  Although that might prove interesting too; I don’t know.  What I do know is that, taken together, they provide a pretty intense oral history of what people are capable of (both in terms of violence, and in terms of survival).  And they deserve to be read, even if it’s not easy.

Entry Filed under: Nonfiction