We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families

Updated June 26, 2020 | Infoplease Staff

Over the course of a 100 grim days in 1994, nearly a million Rwandans were killed by their neighbors, co-workers, fellow church-goers, and family members. According to most sociological classifications, the brutally massacred Tutsis could not even be considered a separate ethnic group from the killing Hutus. How this chillingly efficient genocide came to pass and why the U.S., U.N., and various world powers chose to ignore the crimes are the focus of this book. Gourevitch does not point fingers but instead asks questions that move ever closer to the heart of the matter as he travels across the ransacked country two years later. The writing is sensitive and engaging, just as the subject matter is terrifying and troubling. The unusual title is an excerpt from a letter Tutsi parishioners sent seeking assistance from their Hutu minister — the man who, unbeknownst to them, had engineered their deaths. Although not moralistic in aim, We Wish To Inform You lays bare the consequences of apathy, overlook, and willful misunderstanding that characterize the worst genocide in decades. One of the year's most important books.