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Home > Translation > The World Bookshelf > Books > Into the Quick of Life

Into the Quick of Life

Five out of six Tutsis were hacked to death with machetes and spears by their Hutu neighbours. In the villages of Nyamata and N’tarama, where, in the first two days of the genocide, over 10,000 Tutsis were massacred in the churches where they sought refuge, Jean Hatzfeld interviewed some of the survivors.

Of all ages, from different walks of life, from orphan teenage farmers to the local social worker, fourteen survivors talk of the genocide, the death of family and friends in the church and in the marshes of Bugesera to which they fled. They also talk of their present life and try to explain and understand the reasons behind the extermination. These horrific accounts of life at the very edge contrast with Hatzfeld’s own sensitive and vivid descriptions of Rwanda’s villages and countryside in peacetime. Into the Quick of Life brings us, in the author’s own words, ‘as close to [the event] as we can ever get’.

‘Surely among the most powerful pieces of journalism of our generation’
Herald

How did Writers in Translation support Into the Quick of Life?

To mark the publication of the book Jean Hatzfeld was in conversation with Lt General Romeo Dallaire, author of Shake Hands with the Devil about the Rwandan genocide, at an event in August 2005 at Foyles. The event was chaired by the journalist and writer Linda Melvern and was in association with Survivors Fund, a charitable organisation dedicated to aiding and assisting the survivors of the Rwandan genocide.

Jean Hatzfeld also gave a talk with photographer Nic Dunlop at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on 28 August 2005.

Author

Jean Hatzfeld

Jean Hatzfeld

Books

Into the Quick of Life

Jean Hatzfeld was born in Madagascar in 1949. His Jewish parents had fled there from the Nazis 7 years previously, but the family eventually returned to the Auvergne region. In 1977 he started to work as journalist for the French daily Libération among others.

Hatzfeld worked as a special correspondent and war reporter throughout eastern Europe, from the advent of Solidarnosc in Poland until the fall of Berlin’s Wall, covering the Velvet Revolution in former Czechoslovakia and the fall of the Ceausescu regime in Romania.

For 25 years, since the end of 1970s, he mainly worked in the Middle East, including Lebanon, Israel and Iraq. He spent three years in countries of Former Yugoslavia, between Vukovar and Sarajevo. In Sarajevo he was seriously injured through a Kalashnikov salvo. Hatzfeld published two books set against this background: L’Air de la guerre (1994), evoking his experiences in the former Yugoslavia; and La guerre au bord du fleuve (1999), a novel inspired by the war. He also worked in Haiti, Congo, Algeria, Burundi and Iran.

In 1994, he travelled to Rwanda to report about the massacre there, and its aftermath, for Libération. He later decided to leave daily journalism in order to focus solely on research into the genocide.  He published Dans le nu de la vie in 2000, in which he reports the stories of Tutsi survivors. The volume was awarded the Prix Culture 2000, the Prix Pierre Mille and the Prix France Culture. Hatzfeld said that after the publication of his first volume, readers expressed interest in hearing the voices of the Hutu perpetrators. Two years later, his conversations with condemned Hutus culminated in Une Saison de machettes, for which he won the essay category of the Prix Femina in 2003 and the Prix Jossef Kessel in 2004. He divides his time between Rwanda and Paris.

He won the 2006  T.R. Fyvel Book Award – Free expression award from Index on Censorship – for his books on the Rwandan genocide.

Translator

Gerry Feehily

Gerry Feehily

Books

Into the Quick of Life

Gerry Feehily was born in London in 1968. Raised in Ireland, he lived in Italy, Spain, Germany and Japan before settling in Paris in the mid nineties.

As well as working for Courrier International, Feehily is also a freelance journalist, specialising in literature and European politics. His articles have appeared in various publications including the Guardian, the Independent, New Statesman, Irish Examiner, Spiked and 3am Magazine. As well as his translation of Into The Quick of Life, Gerry Feehily has also translated Pavel Hak’s novel Sniper, also published by Serpent’s Tail in 2005.

He is the author of two novels, Fever (2007) and Gunk (2013).

Published by

Serpent's Tail, 2005
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Five out of six Tutsis were hacked to death with machetes and spears by their Hutu neighbours. In the villages of Nyamata and N’tarama, where, in the first two days of the genocide, over 10,000 Tutsis were massacred in the churches where they sought refuge, Jean Hatzfeld interviewed some of the survivors.

Of all ages, from different walks of life, from orphan teenage farmers to the local social worker, fourteen survivors talk of the genocide, the death of family and friends in the church and in the marshes of Bugesera to which they fled. They also talk of their present life and try to explain and understand the reasons behind the extermination. These horrific accounts of life at the very edge contrast with Hatzfeld’s own sensitive and vivid descriptions of Rwanda’s villages and countryside in peacetime. Into the Quick of Life brings us, in the author’s own words, ‘as close to [the event] as we can ever get’.

‘Surely among the most powerful pieces of journalism of our generation’
Herald

How did Writers in Translation support Into the Quick of Life?

To mark the publication of the book Jean Hatzfeld was in conversation with Lt General Romeo Dallaire, author of Shake Hands with the Devil about the Rwandan genocide, at an event in August 2005 at Foyles. The event was chaired by the journalist and writer Linda Melvern and was in association with Survivors Fund, a charitable organisation dedicated to aiding and assisting the survivors of the Rwandan genocide.

Jean Hatzfeld also gave a talk with photographer Nic Dunlop at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on 28 August 2005.

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