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April 2014 marks the 20th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide--Read more about the conflict and the amazing life story of the man who inspired the film Hotel Rwanda�in this remarkable account
Readers who were moved and horrified by Hotel Rwanda will respond even more intensely to Paul Rusesabagina’s unforgettable autobiography. As Rwanda was thrown into chaos during the 1994 genocide, Rusesabagina, a hotel manager, turned the luxurious Hotel Milles Collines into a refuge for more than 1,200 Tutsi and moderate Hutu refugees, while fending off their would-be killers with a combination of diplomacy and deception. In An Ordinary Man, he tells the story of his childhood, retraces his accidental path to heroism, revisits the 100 days in which he was the only thing standing between his “guests” and a hideous death, and recounts his subsequent life as a refugee and activist.
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- Sales Rank: #23764 in Books
- Brand: Rusesabagina, Paul/ Zoellner, Tom
- Published on: 2007-02-27
- Released on: 2007-02-27
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 7.80" h x .60" w x 5.10" l, .38 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 224 pages
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. For former hotel manager Paul Rusesabagina, words are the most powerful weapon in the human arsenal. For good and for evil, as was the case in the spring of 1994 in Rwanda. Over 100 days, some 800,000 people were slaughtered, most hacked to death by machete. Rusesabagina�€”inspiration for the movie Hotel Rwanda�€”used his facility with words and persuasion to save 1,268 of his fellow countrymen, turning the Belgian luxury hotel under his charge into a sanctuary from madness. Through negotiation, favor, flattery and deception, Rusesabagina managed to keep his "guests" alive another day despite the homicidal gangs just beyond the fence and the world's failure to act. Narrator Hoffman delivers those words in a stirring audio performance. With a crisp African accent, Hoffman renders each sentence with heartfelt conviction and flat-out becomes Rusesabagina. The humble hotel manager not only illuminates the machinery behind the genocide but delves into Rwanda's complex and colorful cultural history as well as his own childhood, the son of a Hutu father and Tutsi mother. Hoffman successfully draws out the understated elegance of Rusesabagina's simple and straightforward prose, lending the story added vividness. This tale of good, evil and moral responsibility winds down with Rusesabagina visiting a church outside Kigali where thousands were massacred and where a multilingual sign-cloth now pledges, "Never Again." He once more stops to consider words, the ones he worries lack true conviction�€”like those at the church�€”as well as the ones with the power to heal. For the listener, the words of Paul Rusesabagina won't soon be forgotten.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
Rusesabagina . . . weaves his country’s history with his personal history into a rich narrative that attempts to explain the unexplainable. . . . The book’s emotional power comes from his understatement and humility. (The Boston Globe)
An extraordinary cautionary tale. (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
Rusesabagina’s story of survival amid manic slaughter is as awful as it is gripping. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
Read this book. It will humble and inspire you. (Sunday Telegraph, London)
Extraordinary—horrific and tragic, but also inspiring, because Rusesabagina refuses to give up his belief in the basic decency of humanity. (The Times, London)
About the Author
Paul Rusesabagina was the first Rwandan manager of the Hotel Milles Collines, a European-owned luxury hotel in Rwanda. A recipient of the National Civil Rights Museum’s 2005 Freedom Award, he lives in Brussels, Belgium.
Tom Zoellner has worked as a contributing editor for Men’s Health magazine and as a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle. His book The Heartless Stone: A Journey Through the World of Diamonds and Desire will be published in the summer of 2006.
Most helpful customer reviews
24 of 25 people found the following review helpful.
An Extraordinary Man
By Lynn M. Griesemer
Well written, provocative and emotionally captivating. "An Ordinary Man" should be required reading for everyone, especially young adults - our future generation. I had the pleasure of meeting Paul Rusesbagina when he spoke at a local college on April 10th to a crowd of over 1000. He is humble, bright and compassionate. He escaped death at least half a dozen times during the spring of 1994. I can only wonder if God's plan was not only for him to save 1268 lives, but to bring the whole issue of genocide to the forefront of the minds of the hundreds of thousands who will read this book.
I bought his book on the spot and have been consumed by it for the past week. I've stayed up late; I began researching genocide and I've been lost in deep thought and prayer for those who were murdered and those who are being murdered by genocide as you read this. I plan on reading it again, more slowly in a few months in order to digest all of his ideas, opinions and suggestions.
History was presented to me in a boring manner in high school, but the movie "Hotel Rwanda" and now this book, have caused me to stop what I am doing and take a good hard look at the whole issue of genocide.
Not only genocide, but I can see how the power elite (high level politicians in our country) try to build a case with rhetoric and faulty arguments to get Americans to unknowingly agree with some ludicrous and dangerous beliefs, such as support for the current war in Iraq and possible aggression toward Iran.
In 1994, I remember listening to radio commentary that suggested that the US stay out of Rwanda's affairs and I agreed because that's the case that was built and that's what I heard on the radio. Now I know differently. Imagine if the US stayed out of the affairs of the Nazi holocaust - would there be 6 million more deaths in the 1940's? Because of this book, I have a renewed interest in history. And please, media, don't let me hear you say "ethnic cleansing." The term is genocide.
As far as I'm concerned, Paul Rusesabagina is on the level of Mother Teresa and has a lot in common with her - an ordinary man who was just doing what he could, using peaceful means. And today, Paul heads a foundation that helps the displaced orphans (500,000+).
Read this book as soon as you can and take heed - genocide is something that is ongoing in the Congo and Sudan, and may erupt again in the near future, if not in Rwanda, then somewhere else.
33 of 38 people found the following review helpful.
Should be required reading for everyone
By K. B. Brown
I heard Mr. Rusesabagina speak on April 4th at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, and was fortunate enough to buy an autographed copy of the book. The writing is amazingly beautiful, and every page is filled with ideas that, if followed, will make us all better people. I'm on chapter two at the moment and preparing for the grisly details to come... but am astonished at the hope and spirituality evident even in the face of such ugliness. Paul Rusesabagina is a saint for modern times, and I would recommend not waiting for the paperback edition of this book.... it is destined to become a classic.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful.
An intelligently written and incredibly moving autobiography
By Bookreporter
"Our time here on the earth is short, and our chance to make a difference is tiny. For me the grinding blocks of history came together in such a way that I was able to take what fragile defense I had and hold in place for seventy-six days. If I was able to give much it was only because I had some useful things from my life to give. I am a hotel manager...my job never changed, even in a sea of fire."
- Paul Rusesabagina
According to Paul Rusesabagina, there was nothing extraordinary about his actions during the Rwandan genocides in 1994. "Over and over people kept telling me that what I did at the Milles Collines was heroic, but I never saw it that way, and I still don't. I was providing shelter. I was a hotel manager doing his job. That is the best thing anyone can say about me, and all I ever wanted. And that's really the best I have to give." To this day and despite the overwhelming success of the recent film Hotel Rwanda that brought his heroic deeds international attention, Rusesabagina insists that he was just an ordinary man doing what he thought was right in a time of national crisis.
Although he is right in saying that he should not be treated as superhuman, there is a certain amount of awe and respect with which we must look upon Rusesabagina and those like him, and recognize the immense amount of courage it took for him to do what he did. Using his strength in character, ability to negotiate with any person or party despite what side they were on, and utmost faith in the power of words to produce a workable outcome, he managed to save the lives of approximately 1,268 friends, relatives and strangers by creating a safe but incredibly fragile asylum for them at the Hotel Milles Collines during one of the most volatile and deadly times in Rwandan history, with he as their protector.
For 76 days, Rusesabagina used whatever resources he could find to prevent the hotel from being ambushed or destroyed completely. He kept a secret black book of the names and telephone numbers of people high up in power (in Rwanda and elsewhere) to call in case of an emergency. He offered bribes of cognac and money to blood-hungry colonels who had committed countless killings that day in order to prevent a midnight raid on the hotel that night. He wisely understood that "the cousin of brutality is a terrifying normalcy" and therefore he kept his enemies as close as he kept his friends. "If sitting down with abhorrent people and treating them as friends is what it took...then I was more than happy to pour the Scotch."
In his intelligently written and incredibly moving autobiography, Rusesabagina not only shares his memories of the horrifying period spent trapped inside the Hotel Milles Collines in a straightforward and non-sensational manner, but also he explains the historic significance of the bloody skirmish between the Hutus and the Tutsis and dispels a few ardent myths surrounding its origins. He hints that the nationwide slaughter was not a product of ancient racial hatreds, but instead that this oversimplification was "an easy way for Westerners to dismiss the whole thing as a regrettable but pointless bloodbath that happens to primitive brown people." In truth, these tribal prejudices were "a cheap way to motivate the citizen killers --- not the root cause" and more accurately, the impetus to kill was born out of a desire for power. With a precision that could only come not from a researched historian but from a Rwandan in love with the country that made him, he carefully outlines the circumstances leading up to the massacre so that readers can finally begin to understand how and why such a tragedy was (and still is) possible.
Currently, the Rusesabaginas live in Belgium and are doing their best to move past the indescribable horrors they witnessed in 1994. Following the success of Hotel Rwanda, Paul started the Hotel Rwanda Rusesabagina Foundation to provide education and health care to thousands of homeless Rwandan children who were left parentless in the wake of the genocide. He has also written this book in order to set the record straight, for "words are the most powerful tools of all, and especially the words that we pass to those who come after us.... We cannot change the past, but we can improve the future with the limited tools and words that we have been given."
Perhaps the most astonishing gift that Rusesabagina has to offer should not be described as heroism, but instead as a gentle willingness to do what's right in the face of grave danger and a refusal to forgo the pursuit of goodness when presented with an easier way out. Whether he believes he deserves the title of "hero" is well beside the point. He is clearly a shining example of a valiant humanitarian and one who deserves recognition as an "ordinary man" with a resounding message: "Wherever the killing season should next begin and people should become strangers to their neighbors and themselves, my hope is that there will still be those ordinary men who say a quiet no and open the rooms upstairs."
--- Reviewed by Alexis Burling
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