Strength in What Remains

Kidder, Tracy

  9 Reviews

It sounds like a made-up story: young man escapes from scenes of horror in genocidal civil war affected country, arrives in New York unable to speak English and with two hundred dollars to his name; strangers befriend him and support him to study as a doctor at a prestigious university and medical school.

This is the life of Deogratis Niyizonkiza who arrives in the United States from Burundi in 1994. This story considers the background to the Burundi conflict while serving testimony to the resilience of the human spirit, the power of hope and the kindness of strangers. An important book with a powerful and inspirational message.

Comments from Groups

Quite a powerful book. The quote at the end of the first paragraph on p187 summarised the feelings of the reader - "They were not themselves, they were something else." It clarified the position and the brutality of the people in Rwanda and Burundi, and seemed to explain the Middle Eastern situation. Worth a read to gain an insight into that area's political troubles. Christchurch 317

In general, this book was enjpyed by all, although quite a few felt the first half of the book rated much better. It was written well and there was the right balance of violent material to an interesting insight into tribal people and their way of life in peaceful times. We all found it interesting how the power of some people can make peaceful people turn on each other. An enlightening story, but it left lots of unanswered questions. Invercargill 003

The first part was horrifying, informative and interesting, but when the author started writing about the process of writing the book, we all lost interest. We didn't think that jumping between time zones worked well, and would have preferred the story to be in chronological order. Auckland 050

The group found this book sobering, powerful and insightful. Few of us had fully appreciated the scale of the genocide in Rwanda/Burundi previously, and our discussion centred largely on this, together with civilisation as a whole, and what our species is capable of. Martinborough 003

The book was a beautifully written account of a wonderful young man. We felt the way it was written brought us face to face with the way he had to relive his terrible nightmarish past in order to find a way of making some healing sense of it. Pahiatua 001

This wasn't a book to 'enjoy' - a truly tragic story of violence begetting violence yet with a thread of hope. Instances of kindness throughout reveal the effect this has on Deo, who perseveres in many ways to improve his situation. while fighting the demons of his past. Whakatane 005

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