From the Publisher
"Look, for people who're going to be dead soon, we're not doing
too badly."
"The novel of the year" is what La Presse called this
extraordinary book, a love story that takes place in the days
leading up to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. A first work of fiction
by one of French Canada's most admired journalists, Gil
Courtemanche, it was first published in Quebec in 2000, spent more
than a year on bestseller lists and won the Prix des Libraires, the
booksellers' award for outstanding book of the year. Rights were
sold to publishers in over twenty countries in Europe and around
the world. This humanist story of an unlikely love affair set
against a holocaust has become an internationally acclaimed
phenomenon, worthy of comparison with the work of Graham Greene and
Albert Camus.
The swimming pool of the Mille-Collines hotel, Kigali, in the early
1990s, draws a regular crowd of assorted aid workers, strutting
Rwandan officials, Belgian businessmen, French paratroops and
Canadian expats. Among them is Bernard Valcourt, a documentary
filmmaker from Quebec, on a mission to set up a television station
in the capital. Valcourt, who for two decades has earned his living
from wars and famines, lingers around the pool drinking warm beer
and watching football; but most of all, watching Gentille, a
beautiful young waitress, who is a Hutu but often mistaken for a
Tutsi because of her family's strange history.
The trouble coming stems from a long conflict, instigated in
colonial times by Whites who treated Tutsis as superior to Hutus.
The Hutu government is now openly encouraging violence against
Tutsis. The physical traits of the Tutsis make them easy prey, but
they are not the only ones in danger. Too many people are already
dying in Rwanda daily: of AIDS, of malaria, and increasingly at
roadblocks at the hands of drunken militia, or pulled from their
homes. The hotel staff and prostitutes sense trouble and death
drawing closer as they continue providing drinks and meals and
sex.
The story of this developing catastrophe is revealed through the
lives of a handful of Rwandans who befriend Valcourt. They confide
in him because he listens, and because his interviews offer them a
chance to try to change the way things are by telling the world.
Their candour and warmth begin to make his heart glow. He meets
people like Méthode, who knows a bloodbath is brewing and would
rather die of AIDS in the comfort of a hotel room than by a
machete. Threatened, frightened, sick, they don't want to talk and
act like they're dying. Poor as they are, they want to have some
moments of pleasure and celebrate life.
As Kigali life continues in its resourcefulness and persistence,
Valcourt is falling in love with Rwanda, and with Gentille, who
loves him because he sees her as no-one has seen her before. Even
as the worst horrors begin, as friends are raped and murdered, he
starts to feel a strange peace in this land of a thousand hills,
though he repudiates the outside world for its failure to
intervene. Because Gentille is thought to be Tutsi, her life is in
danger. Still, no-one can believe that the extremists will go too
far, that brothers and sisters will kill brothers and sisters, and
that 800,000 civilians will be massacred.
A hard-hitting chronicle of an overlooked chapter of recent
history, told with skill and compassion, A Sunday at the
Pool in Kigali is also a celebration of living in the
moment, of the integrity of friendship and the courage of everyday
heroes. Harrowing, unsettling, challenging, but beautiful and
moving, it is a book that cannot leave the reader untouched; as a
Quill & Quire reviewer said, it is "full of real
people that demand to be remembered."
About the Author
Gil Courtemanche is a journalist in international
and third-world politics, and an author of several non-fiction
works. Un dimanche à la piscine à Kigali spent
more than a year on Quebec bestseller lists. A film version
directed by Robert Favreau was released in 2006.
Patricia Claxton is one of Canada's foremost
translators, who has worked with Gabrielle Roy, Nicole Brossard and
Pierre Elliott Trudeau, among others.
Bookclub Guide
1. Courtemanche has said: "People say to me it's the first time
they feel Africa, it's the first time they understand what happened
in Rwanda." (The Herald, Glasgow) Which parts of the novel
in particular managed to show the situation in a new light for
you?
2. Why do you think the author, a well-known journalist, decided
to tell this story as fiction? Why do you think it became such an
international phenomenon, published in 14 languages in one
season?
3. Which was your favourite character in the novel, and why?
4. Cyprien says, "You could live only if you knew you were going
to die." If the novel asks, like all great literature, how are we
to live our lives and how to die - what conclusions, if any, did
you draw?
5. Since Whites are depicted as responsible for so much trouble
in Rwanda, how do you feel about Valcourt's relationship with
Gentille? How does their love story fit with the terrifying
depictions of rape and murder? How did you feel about Valcourt's
return to Kigali after the genocide?
6. Courtemanche draws an explicit comparison between the Rwandan
genocide and the Nazi Holocaust during World War II, stating that
the killers killed with such savagery because "they were too poor
to build gas chambers." Did you find this a vivid comparison?
7. How does the novel compare with your expectations of it?
8. "A few pages are enough for you to be swept away into the
terrifying madness of a country" (Le Nouvel Observateur).
How does the author manage to give both a wide vision of the
situation in the country and an intimate portrait of the
characters?