A review of Left to Tell:
Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust, by Immaculee
Ilibagiza, Hay House Books 2020.
This is an intense personal chronicle of a young woman who
survived the genocide by hiding, along with six others, in a small bathroom for
eight weeks. Around them the genocide raged stoked by ethnic animosities, which
inflamed rural Rwanda pitting neighbors and friends against each other. Essentially in Immaculee’s region the Tutsi
were wiped out including her parents and two brothers. A third brother who was
studying abroad also lived.
Immaculee tells her story in a stark compelling narrative.
As do many others still today, she never fully understands the why, but she did
clearly grasp the danger and threat of imminent death should she or others
hidden with her be found by the killers.
Amidst the hiding and the menace of death, Immaculee relied upon her faith
and built upon it for sustenance and hope.
Ultimately, she accepts the catastrophe of evil visited upon the Tutsi
people and refuses to blame the killers but rather to forgive them.
All in all, Left to Tell is a gripping read that
reveals a very personal story from a survivor of genocide. My only quibble is
that the narration uses dialogue in quotations that obviously was created after
the fact. Such a device contributes to the power of the story and gives it an
immediacy that it would not otherwise have, so I must accept it.
Readers of Left to Tell will be astounded by the
horror of the genocide, the courage of the victims and the bravery of those who
saved some.
