A Sunday At The Pool In Kigali by Gil Courtemanche
An immensely powerful, cathartic denunciation of poverty, ignorance, global apathy and media blindness. Kigali is both a poignant love story and a stirring hymn to humanity - an essential read for anyone interested in exceptional literature of lasting value. The swimming pool of the Mille-Collines hotel is a magnet for a privileged group of Kigali residents: aid-workers, Rwandan bourgeoisie, soldiers and assorted expatriates. Prostitutes and birds abound too. Among these patrons is the waitress Gentille, a beautiful Hutu often mistaken for a Tutsi, long admired by Valcourt, a Canadian journalist and film-maker. As the two test the water with a love affair, civil unrest in Rwanda makes insidious, inevitable progress.
Courtemanche is a French-Canadian journalist and film-maker specialising in Third-World politics and the impact of AIDS upon AfricaSet 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.
GIL COURTEMANCHE is an author and journalist in international and third-world politics. His recent non-fiction works are Quebec (1998) and Nouvelles douces coleres (1999). Un dimanche a la piscine a Kigali (2001) is his first novel. He also made an award-winning film called 'The Gospel of AIDS'.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781841954332 |
| ISBN 10 | 1841954330 |
| Title | A Sunday At The Pool In Kigali |
| Author | Gil Courtemanche |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Canongate Books |
| Year published | 2003-09-15 |
| Number of pages | 276 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |