Season of Blood

This is an account of the Rwandan genocide, in which more than one million people were killed between April and July of 1994. The author, shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Writing, tells the story of a journey in which he narrowly escaped death at the hands of Hutu extremists and tracked down one of the most notorious mass murderers of the conflict. He examines how tens of thousands of ordinary Hutus were mobilized by their political leaders to massacre members of the Tutsi minority, as well as moderate Hutu politicians. Keane rejects the widely-held perception that Rwanda's slaughter was the simple consequence of tribal antagonisms. Instead he blames unscrupulous politicians for encouraging ethnic rivalry and planning a systematic campaign of genocide.