Published by McSweeney's Books and included with issue 40 of McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, this book is a little revelation. The author, Rick Bass, his wife, daughter and author/activist Terry Tempest Williams go to Rwanda to teach creative writing classes to Rwandan students. First they take tours at memorials and learn about the horrific genocide of 1994. The descriptions of the violence is almost unbearable. They then teach students of a writing club encouraging the students to use the memories of the genocide they survived as youngsters to fuel their stories and heal themselves. Finally there is a trip to visit the mountain gorillas of which there are less than a 1000 left in the world.
It is all written beautifully and is incredibly moving, in fact, it's one of the most emotional pieces I've ever read.
The book concludes with some samples of the students' writing produced during the workshop. ( )

I did learn a lot about the genocide in Rwanda and a little about gorillas. Otherwise, this book is pretty weak. I'm glad McSweeney's published it as I would not have read up on this topic otherwise, but I'm also glad the book was short. I could give the guy a break for weak writing and...until I saw that he was writing instructor. And, even if the rest of the book had been up to snuff, the passage on intuition alone would have lost it two or three stars. ( )