Life Laid Bare: The Survivors in Rwanda Speak

It is important for survivors to have a voice and it gives thought to how to prevent such atrocities in the future.

Life Laid Bare is simply superb. The author allows the voices of the genocide survivors ring through and gives them enough time and enough respect to allow them to verbally muse and mull. The net result is not only illuminating of Rwanda's history and the genocide itself - but presses home the complexity of genocidal events. I very much liked the fact that the author and the survivors made no attempt to speak for others in the sense that the claim here is that people are telling their own experience in the midst of events. They are humblingly humble in their incite of the enormity, but yet at the same time, individuality, of what they experienced. Must be read with the two subsequent books, Machete Season and the Antelope's Strategy.

This should be required reading for high school. This tragedy was all but forgotten in time. The desperate plight of an entire group of people. They were all but forgotten. Still they suffer in property.

This compilation of interviews with various survivors of the Rwandan Genocide is one of great depth. I read this work during my graduate studies for a Holocaust and Genocide studies MA. Considering the amount of material I have read that is similar in content to this work, I was not expecting such a strong and visceral reaction. At one point in the work, I was unable to keep reading and had to leave the book while I wept. It is not often that this reaction comes to me at this point. The suffering is palpable throughout these interviews and this is a must-read work for anyone interested in human rights, genocide, war, peace studies, history or life in general.

I liked the way the author gave a brief over view of the survivor's life before the genocide and thenlet them tell their story in their own words of what they went through to survive and how they are handling theirlife now. One common thread throughout each story was the fact that the world just seemed to beoblivious of what was going on in Rwanda or that they didn't seem to care. Not one survivor talkedbitterly about this, they just couldn't figure out "why?"

This is a book composed of first-hand accounts of peoples lives before, during and after the genocide. It's composed of a variety of individual voices; young, old, male, female. Their survival in this one area of Rwanda, was a miracle.

I found everything about this book had magical as it was disheartening and devastating. The words that these survivors spoke will live on with me for forever.

There is really very little to be said. It really helps one to reflect on how ridiculous the politics of our time are; how base, and self-serving. The Rwandans surviving this genocide-- unimaginable how they did.

One of the best books I've ever read