num_pages: 272
description: In April-May 1994, 800,000 Rwandan Tutsis were massacred by their Hutu fellow citizens - about 10,000 a day, mostly being hacked to death by machete. Jean Hatzfeld reports on the results of his interviews with nine of the Hutu killers, all of whom are now in prison, some awaiting execution. Hatzfeld elicits extraordinary testimony from these men about the genocide they perpetrated. Each describes what it was like the first time he killed someone, what he felt like when he killed a mother and child, and how he reacted when he killed a cordial acquaintance. Each reflects on his feelings of moral responsibility, his guilt, remorse, or indifference to the crimes. Especially since the Holocaust, it has been conventional to presume that only depraved and monstrous evil incarnate could perpetrate such crimes, but it may be, Hatzfeld suggests, that such actions are within the realm of ordinary human conduct. To read this disturbing, enlightening and very brave book is to consider in a new light the foundation of human morality and ethics.
language: English
title: A Time for MacHetes : The Rwandan Genocide - The Killers Speak
titlecomplete: A Time for MacHetes : The Rwandan Genocide - The Killers Speak
genres: Rwanda, War, Politics, Psychology, Nonfiction, Memoir, School, Adult, History, Africa
ratings_count: 2620
places: Rwanda
series: Rwanda
awards: awardedAt: 1041408000000
name: Prix Femina
category: Essai, awardedAt: 1072944000000
name: Prix Joseph Kessel, awardedAt: 1325404800000
name: Ryszard Kapuściński Prize, awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: Scott Moncrieff Prize
category: Linda Coverdale
publisher: Serpent's Tail