The Girl who Smiled Beads : : a Story of war and What Comes After

Locations
Call Number: 967.57 Wa, Adult Book / Nonfiction / Biography / General / Wamariya, Clemantine
On Shelf At: Downtown Library, Pittsfield Branch, Westgate Branch

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	967.57 Wa	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	967.57 Wa	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	967.57 Wa	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	967.57 Wa	4-week checkout	Due 05-18-2024
Pittsfield Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Nonfiction / Biography / General / Wamariya, Clemantine	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Westgate Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Nonfiction / Biography / General / Wamariya, Clemantine	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Malletts Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Nonfiction / Biography / General / Wamariya, Clemantine	4-week checkout	Due 05-20-2024

"Clemantine Wamariya was six years old when her mother and father began to speak in whispers, when neighbors began to disappear, and when she heard the loud, ugly sounds her brother said were thunder. It was 1994, and in 100 days more than 800,000 people would be murdered in Rwanda and millions more displaced. Clemantine and her fifteen-year-old sister, Claire, ran and spent the next six years wandering through seven African countries searching for safety. They did not know whether their parents were alive. At age twelve, Clemantine and Claire were granted asylum in the United States. Raw, urgent, yet disarmingly beautiful, this book captures the true costs and aftershocks of war: what is forever lost, what can be repaired, the fragility and importance of memory. A riveting story of dislocation, survival."-- Provided by the publisher."

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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

***** submitted by shannonwait on July 29, 2018, 9:30am Beautifully-written, intense, upsetting, and really got under my skin--all in the best way. This should be required reading.

Realist view of Rwanda from an up-and-coming Rwandan voice submitted by hgerety on July 22, 2020, 4:05pm So many stories of genocide aim to comfort us -- finding the beauty in the disaster, but only the beauty. Some of these stories are still enjoyable -- like the film Life is Beautiful -- even if they are a bit one-note. It's hard to present the multi-faceted truth of a complex event like genocide, and hard not to present the victims as one-dimensional heroes.

So many stories of genocide and disaster are told from outside; this is understandable, as the people who have the time and resources to invest in telling these stories are often the people least affected. Some of these (like Philip Gourevitch's We Would Like to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families) are extremely well-written accounts. But there's still something to be said for a first-person account.

This story manages to present the complexities of genocide, from the perspective of one who experienced the event first-hand. Wamariya doesn't seek to sugarcoat the Rwandan genocide, but she also doesn't resort to what has been called 'disaster porn'. She also doesn't present the victims as one-note heroes: they're humans, just like anyone else, and subject to the same vagaries of character and personality.

Wamariya's story is poetic and moving, but also realistic and hard to confront. Hers is one of the most important voices to come out of Rwanda in recent years (which is saying something), and well worth your time.

Wow! A Must Read submitted by mickplu on July 29, 2023, 7:41am If you think you know about the topic of refugees, you need to read this book because he will undoubtedly learn more from this account of a child, who was granted asylum in the US at age 12. Clementine and her sister Claire went through utter hell and their story is actually quite common, although we do not realize it in the US. The book is extremely well written and keeps the reader engaged to the point of doing for the research on the topic often.