Every April since 1994, Rwanda comes to a standstill. It is a month of reflection, remembrance and hope. Known as Kwibuka, the country commemorates those who died in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

This year marks the 26th commemoration, which comes at a time when the country is in lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic. As more people find themselves indoors, it is an opportune time to read some books to better understand the history of the genocide and what happened after.

Here are 10 books, published over the past two decades, depicting what happened during that tragic period in 1994.

1. Not My Time to Die (2019), by Yolande Mukagasana

This is the English translation of Mukagasana’s French book Le Mort ne Veut pas de Moi published in 1997, which was the first literary testimony by a survivor.

Mukagasana was a nurse and a mother of three at the time. Her memoir describes the betrayal of friends, hiding from the killers, and her feelings of suspicion, anger and disappointment.

2. Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust (2006), by Immaculee Ilibagiza

Ilibagiza writes about her experience as a young survivor through the darkness of the genocide . She describes the terror as her family is brutally murdered and her ordeal as she hid in a cramped bathroom of a local pastor while machete-wielding killers hunted for her. The book also details how she discovered the meaning of true unconditional love and forgave her family’s killers.

3. We Survived Genocide in Rwanda (2006), 28 Personal Testimonies

This book is a compilation of the stories of 28 survivors, detailing their pain and suffering. The book shows that genocide is just not a mass crime but a single murder repeated hundreds of thousands of times.

4. Our Lady of the Nile (2016), by Scholastique Mukasonga

Mukasonga’s novel is a snapshot of the social and racial conflicts that eventually led to the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. She writes about life in a Catholic boarding secondary school in Nyambinombe District around 1980. It is a work of fiction unlike the other books on this list.

5. Conspiracy to Murder: The Rwandan Genocide (2006, updated version), by Linda Melvern

A British investigative journalist, Melvern’s numerous writings on the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsis have become a staple part of teaching for degree courses globally on conflict studies.

In this book, she explores the planning and preparation of the Interahamwe militia to perpetrate the killings, mentioning names of key individuals and institutions responsible. The updated version includes an account of the genocide trials at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

6. Life Laid Bare: The Survivors in Rwanda Speak (2007), by Jean Hatzfeld

The first work in a trilogy is a mixture of oral history and personal reflection based on the stories of 14 survivors who had spent about 100 days of the genocide hiding in dense papyrus swamps near their home.

This is the English translation of the original French book Dans le Nu de la Vie. Hatzfeld spent a lot of time in the village, the bars, the backyards and the fields with survivors.

7. Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda (2004), by Romeo Dallaire

Lieutenant-General Romeo Dallaire of the Canadian Forces was the force commander of the UN Assistance Mission for Rwanda in 1994.

He writes about places, people and events and his efforts to rescue thousands as his calls for more support from the UN when things got out of hand fell on deaf ears.

He also chronicles his own progression from a confident soldier to a devastated UN commander and finally to a retired general struggling painfully and publicly to overcome post-traumatic stress disorder.

8. We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda (1998), by Philip Gourevitch

The New Yorker’s Gourevitch retelling of stories of the survivors provides context for the circumstances under which the genocide broke out.

It highlights how the international community soon forgot about the survivors and focused their attention on the genocide perpetrators who fled to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

9. Stepp’d in Blood: Akazu and the Architects of the Rwandan Genocide Against the Tutsi (2019), by Andrew Wallis,

In his latest work, British journalist Wallis goes back in history to unpack the central role the Akazu (little house) in the Rwandan society, which preceded the Genocide against the Tutsi, and their mafia-esque totalitarianism paved the way for the mass killings and atrocities.

10. Silent Accomplice: The Untold Story of France’s Role in the Rwandan Genocide (2014, updated version), by Andrew Wallis

Wallis documents the West’s inaction and the role France played. He claims that the French government secretly provided the perpetrators with financial, military and diplomatic support.

Wallis's claims of French complicity are substantiated with interviews, unreleased documents and eyewitness accounts.