When The Hills Ask For Your Blood: A Personal Story of Genocide and Rwanda

Author: Belton, David

Brand: Penguin Random House

Binding: paperback

Number Of Pages: 352

Release Date: 12-03-2015

Details: Product Description
'Tremendous. A moving and haunting tribute to the human spirit' WILLIAM BOYDInto the heart of a genocide that left a million people dead6 April 1994: In the skies above Rwanda the president’s plane is shot down in flames. Near Kigali, Jean-Pierre holds his family close, fearing for their lives as the violence escalates. In the chapel of a hillside village, missionary priest Vjeko Curic prepares to save thousands of livesThe mass slaughter that follows – friends against friends, neighbours against neighbours - is one of the bloodiest chapters in historyTwenty years on, BBC Newsnight producer David Belton, one of the first journalists into Rwanda, tells of the horrors he experienced at first-hand. Now following the threads of Jean-Pierre and Vjeko Curic’s stories, he revisits a country still marked with blood, in search of those who survived and the legacy of those who did not. This is David Belton's quest for the limits of bravery and forgiveness.
Review
Tremendous. A moving and haunting tribute to the human spirit -- WILLIAM BOYD

David Belton has written something very special, a work of non-fiction that has a novel’s power to move, enchant and challenge. This elegantly-written book is much more than a history, a work of lyrical beauty that will stand as a memorial not just for those who died in the genocide but to those of us who struggle to make a difference. -- Tim Butcher, author of BLOOD RIVER

Complex, compassionate and scathing… Much of the writing … has a literary power that lifts it above normal journalistic or non-fiction practice: Jean-Pierre’s confinement in his mud-walled hole has shades of Beckett, and both Odette and Curic seem like Brechtian heroes. ―
Giles Foden

Belton excavates the truth and layers the political, social and military dimensions of the conflict onto three peoples’ stories, to produce a book that is both illuminating and profoundly moving. -- Aminatta Forna ―
Independent

Brings the story right up to date, confronting the dilemmas and tensions that lie not far below the surface ... ―
Observer
About the Author
David Belton worked as a producer at BBC
Newsnight in the 1990s where, amongst many foreign assignments, he covered the civil war in Bosnia and the genocide in Rwanda. In 2002, he co-wrote the story and produced the award-winning feature film
Shooting Dogs based on real events that had taken place during the Rwandan genocide. He has since produced and directed many critically acclaimed and award-winning documentaries for British and American television. He lives in Oxford with his family.

EAN: 9780552775335

Package Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.0 x 1.0 inches

Languages: English