Book 41: A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali

Gil Courtemanche's first novel A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali is a startlingly frank portrayal of the Rwandan Genocide of 1994. It tells the story of one couple, Bernard Valcourt and Gentille. Valcourt is a middle-aged journalist from Canada, living in Rwanda to create a documentary about AIDS (a semi-autobiographical version of Courtemanche), while Gentille is a beautiful young Hutu Rwandan with distinctive Tutsi features who is a waitress at the Mille Collines Hotel, where Valcourt and many other expats are staying. The pair marry, adopt their friends' now orphaned child and are trying to escape from the Hutu massacre of Tutsis and their sympathisers when the two are separated.

In Courtemanche's preface, he establishes and defends the legitimacy of his novel, based on real people (and almost always using their real names) and real events, which have been used to create a realistic retelling of the genocide, where Courtemanche has only 'taken the liberty of inventing a little' in order to better 'convey the human quality of the murdered men and women'. Before even beginning the novel, you are well aware that you will have an experience reading this book, that you will finish it with altered perceptions. But even before the preface, the dedication of the novel, to those alive and dead following the genocide, sets a personal tone that is reflected in the rest of the novel. Not that it is overly emotional, just that you can tell that Courtemanche lived this - the reality, the empathy, the understanding come through every carefully structured sentence.

The prevalence of AIDS embodies the link between sex and death that plays a prominent role in the novel, especially since many of the characters are very aware of the imminent genocide, and are therefore living by the motto that it is 'better to die of pleasure than of torture'. This intermingling produces several scenes that switch between comic and harrowing in just a few words: one man dies of AIDS after experiencing his final orgasm with a prostitute in front of his family and friends; another dies while making love to his wife in front of militiamen after they have repeatedly raped her, only to then be macheted to death. It is a truly shocking read, with as many unexpected turns as a thriller, but with the added horror that the entire thing really happened. I do not think any novel has previously rendered me speechless as frequently as this one - I never knew that such a beautiful book could be so utterly devastating.

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