Burundi

No one travels quite like Richard Grant—and, really, no one should. He’s driven to seek danger yet fully willing to admit when he’s afraid; ever alert to the fascinations of the landscapes, cultures, and individuals he encounters; eager to indulge in whatever bad behavior the locals are up to; and compelled to look into the history, politics, and society of every place he goes.

In his new book, Grant travels with present-day explorers, hunters, degenerates, gangsters, and local reporters, documenting life, landscape, and the history of white exploration in East Africa. Beginning in Zanzibar, where a former golf pro introduces him to the island’s underbelly, Grant takes a cargo dhow across the Indian Ocean, following the route of early British explorers Burton and Speake, and heads into the continent. In the company of an eccentric guide, he rafts an uncharted river in Tanzania, trying to avoid hippos, crocodiles, lions, snakes, malaria, and African sleeping sickness. Grant heads up through war-torn Burundi and finishes his journey in the budding dictatorship of Rwanda.

Gripping, illuminating, sometimes harrowing, often humorous, Grant’s new book will thrill his devoted readers and bring him to an even broader audience.

Gilbert Tuhabonye is a survivor. More than ten years ago, he lay buried under a pile of burning bodies. The centuries–old battle between Hutu and Tutsi tribes had come to Gilbert's school. Fueled by hatred, the Hutus forced more than a hundred Tutsi children and teachers into a small room and used machetes to beat most of them to death. The unfortunate ones who survived the beating were doused with gasoline and set on fire. After hiding under burning bodies for over eight hours, Gilbert heard a voice inside saying, "You will be all right; you will survive." He knows it was God speaking to him. Gilbert was the lone survivor of the genocide, and thanks his enduring faith in God for his survival.

Today, having forgiven his enemies and moved forward with his life, he is a world–class athlete, running coach and celebrity in his new hometown of Austin, Texas. The road to this point has been a tough one, but Gilbert uses his survival instincts to spur him on to the goal of qualifying for the 2008 Olympic Summer Games. THIS VOICE IN MY HEART will portray not only the horrific event itself, but will be a catalyst for people to understand real forgiveness and the gift of faith in God.

Birds of East Africa is the first comprehensive field guide to this spectacular birding region--and one of the best to any region in the world. Covering all resident, migrant, and vagrant birds of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi, this small and compact guide describes and illustrates a remarkable 1,388 species in convenient facing-page layout. Featuring 287 new color plates with 3,400 images painstakingly rendered by three experienced artists, the guide illustrates all the plumages and major races likely to be encountered. Set opposite the plates are range maps and concise accounts describing identification, status, range, habits, and voice for each species. Introductory sections provide notes on how to use the species accounts, the nomenclature adopted, conservation issues, where to send records, and maps of protected and other important bird areas.

Between them, Terry Stevenson and John Fanshawe have more than 40 years' experience leading bird tours and conducting conservation work in East Africa. The region shelters a remarkable diversity of birds, including many seriously threatened species with small and vulnerable ranges. The region's birds form a constantly colorful, noisy, and highly extroverted part of the landscape. The book is sure to become an indispensable guide for anyone interested in studying or conserving birds in East Africa, as well as the many visitors who simply want to enjoy the sheer beauty of its birds.

• First comprehensive field guide to the countries of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi
• Covers 1,388 species, with 3,400 color images on 287 plates
• Concise species accounts facing the plates describe appearance, status, range, habits, and voice
• A color distribution map is given for each species
• Information on habitats, protected areas, and conservation issues
• The essential guide to the birds of this spectacular region
• An overview of East African birds
• East African environment
• Seasonality
• Plumage
• Species accounts
• Common alternative names
• Conservation and threatened species
• The local scene
• Glossary, references, and an index

Key Features:

• Small and compact
• Comprehensive species
• All distinctive plumages and races illustrated
• Color plates
• Illustrations
• All species ranges mapped
• Key protected and important bird areas mapped

Though the genocide of 1994 catapulted Rwanda onto the international stage, English-language historical accounts of the Great Lakes region of Eastern Africa--which encompasses Burundi, eastern Congo, Rwanda, western Tanzania, and Uganda--are scarce. Drawing on colonial archives, oral tradition, archeological discoveries, anthropologic and linguistic studies, and his thirty years of scholarship, Jean-Pierre Chrétien offers a major synthesis of the history of the region, one still plagued by extremely violent wars. This translation brings the work of a leading French historian to an English-speaking audience for the first time.Chrétien retraces the human settlement and the formation of kingdoms around the sources of the Nile, which were "discovered" by European explorers around 1860. He describes these kingdoms' complex social and political organization and analyzes how German, British, and Belgian colonizers not only transformed and exploited the existing power structures, but also projected their own racial categories onto them. Finally, he shows how the independent states of the postcolonial era, in particular Burundi, Rwanda, and Uganda, have been trapped by their colonial and precolonial legacies, especially by the racial rewriting of the latter by the former.Today, argues Chrétien, the Great Lakes of Africa is a crucial region for historical research--not only because its history is fascinating but also because the tragedies of its present are very much a function of the political manipulations of its past.

In 1994, while nations everywhere stood idly by, 800,000 people were slaughtered in eight weeks in Rwanda. Arriving as U.S. Ambassador to neighboring Burundi a few weeks later, Bob Krueger began drawing international attention to the genocide also proceeding in Burundi, where he sought to minimize the killing and to preserve its fledgling democratic government from destruction by its own army. From Bloodshed to Hope in Burundi is a compelling eyewitness account of both a horrific and persistent genocide and of the ongoing efforts of many courageous individuals to build a more just society.

Krueger and his wife Kathleen graphically document the slaughter occurring all around them, as well as their repeated efforts to get the U.S. government and the international community to take notice and take action. Bob Krueger reconstructs the events of the military coup that precipitated the Burundi genocide and describes his efforts to uncover the truth by digging up graves and interviewing survivors. In straightforward and powerful language, Kathleen Krueger recounts her family's experience living amid civil war, including when she faced down a dozen AK-47-wielding African soldiers to save the life of a household worker.

From Bloodshed to Hope in Burundi shines a piercing light on a genocide that has gone largely unreported, and identifies those responsible for it. It also offers hope that as the truth emerges and the perpetrators are brought to account, the people of Burundi will at last achieve peace and reconciliation.