I have mixed feelings about this anthology of interviews from the Hutus who performed genocide in Rwanda and the Tutsis who survived it. On the one hand. the interview material is well presented and fascinating, documenting the attempted reconciliation following a mass release of nearly all of the Hutus involved in the genocide from prison into an uncomfortable coexistence. On the other, the author makes broad statements, such as those about 'Africa' (alluding to an entire continent through a single country's history), and seems to miss out on many of the important cultural and social points that are apparent in the interviews (the adjustment of attitudes of the guilty; the repeated importance of reconciliation by all sides; the foreign involvement that helped to cause this atrocity). As a documentation of characters and interviews this is worth a read, but as a literary exploration it becomes disappointing, particularly in the later chapters. ( )

J'ai commencé ce livre pendant le vol qui m'amenait au Rwanda en août 2010. À mon retour, je ne l'ai pas fini tout de suite. Je viens tout juste de le faire, un an après mon séjour dans ce petit pays magnifique. Lors d'une de nos visites à Mayenge, nous avons entendu le témoignage d'un des tueurs de la région et d'une des rescapés qui a fui au Burundi. Qui sait, peut-être étaient-ils de ceux que Jean Hatzfeld a questionnés? Lire au sujet du massacre de Nyamata et ensuite entrer dans l'église où il a eu lieu, cela ne peut que nous toucher au fond de l'âme. Nous avons beaucoup entendu parler de "réconciliation' pendant notre séjour mais nous y étions pour si peu de temps que nous n'avons pas pu apprécier toute son ampleur. En lisant les témoignages dans La Stratégie des antilopes, on se rend compte que le mot signifie quelque chose de différent pour les tueurs et les rescapés. ( )

The Antelope's Strategy is the third in a trilogy of books about the Rwandan genocide by French journalist Jean Hatzfeld. All of the books are marvels -- reporting the incomprehensible cruelties and depravity of the killing (by machete) of Tutsis by Hutus over a period of a few months in 1994. The first book, Life Laid Bare, gives the witness of a number of Tutsi survivors, spare reporting, eloquent, breathtaking; the second, Machete Season, offers the more flat testimonies of a group of Hutu friends, killers all, from prison and how they remember those harrowing days; and this book The Antelope's Strategy, gives an update from both groups 13 years after the killings, when Tutsi survivors and Hutu murderers are again living side-by-side, if warily, in their villages. What happened is stunning to think about, and can only be described as, yes, total depravity. How to come out of such cruel and senseless carnage with a life is the question all these books take up, and The Antelope's Strategy gives as good an answer as we are likely to get. Many thanks to Jean Hatzfeld and his excellent translator, Linda Coverdale, for a work of tragedy, truth, and simple grandeur. ( )

Writer Philip Gourevitch has chosen to discuss Jean Hatzfeld’s The Antelope's Strategy: Living in Rwanda After the Genocide on FiveBooks as one of the top five on his subject - Rwanda, saying that:



"...In this book you see the evolution of Jean Hatzfeld with these two groups, the survivors and the killers, and his reflections on what is called ‘Reconciliation’ by the government - but is practically just the problem of living together. And it’s a beautiful book, it’s a book that’s incredibly deep. It’s about death, it also tells you something very shocking, which is that ultimately this process of reintegration is really not hard at all on the killers. They go home, they have their freedom, they have their fields, they have their families waiting for them. And obviously the survivors have a much, much harder time reintegrating...."


The full interview is available here: http://five-books.com/interviews/philip-gourevitch ( )