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 A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali by Gil CourtemancheA Sunday at the Pool in Kigali is a moving, passionate love story set amid the turmoil and terror of Rwanda's genocide.
All manner of Kigali residents pass their time by the pool of the Mille-Collines hotel: aid workers, Rwandan bourgeoisie, expatriates, UN peacekeepers, prostitutes. Keeping a watchful eye is Bernard Valcourt, a jaded foreign journalist, but his closest attention is devoted to Gentille, a hotel waitress with the slender, elegant build of a Tutsi. As they slip into an intense, improbable affair, the delicately balanced world around them--already devastated by AIDS--erupts in a Hutu-led genocide against the Tutsi people. Valcourt's efforts to spirit Gentille to safety end in their separation. It will be months before he learns of his lover's shocking fate. "This is where Courtemanche is most powerful: he's not afraid toquestion morality, nor to reveal the human condition in all its heinous inhumanity. The story is intense and gut-wrenching . . . poetic and disquieting.
" --The Observer "Illuminating and horrifying, compassionate and scathing. . . Despite the harrowing subject matter of the novel, Courtemanche sustains a composed narrative voice of grim detachment. The effect is chilling.
" --Times Literary Supplement Paperback 272 pages - 5" x 8" - (10/04)
ZC4345 A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali $13.95
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