Description

Book Synopsis

In the middle of Kigali is a swimming pool at the Hôtel des Mille-Collines. It is a magnet for a privileged group of residents, a place where middle-class Rwandans drink with melancholy expatriates and prostitutes. But beyond the walls of the hotel exists a chaotic society in which millions live in poverty, surrounded by violence and disease. In this troubled world, Valcourt, a Canadian journalist, falls for Gentille, a beautiful Hutu waitress.

A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali is a poignant love story, a stirring hymn to humanity and a modern classic of spellbinding power, confronting the nightmare that ravaged Rwanda in the 1990s.



Trade Review
Exceptional . . . you must read it * * Sunday Times * *
A Heart of Darkness for today -- YANN MARTEL
Intense and gut-wrenching, poetic and disquieting * * Observer * *
Illuminating and horrifying, compassionate and scathing * * Times Literary Supplement * *
Astounding . . . It's no surprise that this book has won so many prizes * * Daily Mail * *
Courtemanche's time in Rwanda, where he worked as a journalist, may have produced the first great novel of the catastrophe that befell that country * * Guardian * *
Haunting, graceful . . . with a journalist's unblinking eye and an appreciation of bitter irony * * New York Times * *
An intense affair, urgent and nerve-wrackingly ominous, with a surprisingly boisterous humour * * Financial Times * *
Courtemanche's work has an enormous quality . . . Read this book * * Spectator * *
Very powerful . . . I urge you to read it * * Literary Review * *

A Sunday At The Pool In Kigali

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    £9.49

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    RRP £9.99 – you save £0.50 (5%)

    Order before 4pm tomorrow for delivery by Sat 13 Jun 2026.

    A Paperback / softback by Gil Courtemanche, Giles Foden, Patricia Claxton

    4 in stock


      View other formats and editions of A Sunday At The Pool In Kigali by Gil Courtemanche

      Publisher: Canongate Books
      Publication Date: 03/05/2018
      ISBN13: 9781782118886, 978-1782118886
      ISBN10: 1782118888

      Description

      Book Synopsis

      In the middle of Kigali is a swimming pool at the Hôtel des Mille-Collines. It is a magnet for a privileged group of residents, a place where middle-class Rwandans drink with melancholy expatriates and prostitutes. But beyond the walls of the hotel exists a chaotic society in which millions live in poverty, surrounded by violence and disease. In this troubled world, Valcourt, a Canadian journalist, falls for Gentille, a beautiful Hutu waitress.

      A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali is a poignant love story, a stirring hymn to humanity and a modern classic of spellbinding power, confronting the nightmare that ravaged Rwanda in the 1990s.



      Trade Review
      Exceptional . . . you must read it * * Sunday Times * *
      A Heart of Darkness for today -- YANN MARTEL
      Intense and gut-wrenching, poetic and disquieting * * Observer * *
      Illuminating and horrifying, compassionate and scathing * * Times Literary Supplement * *
      Astounding . . . It's no surprise that this book has won so many prizes * * Daily Mail * *
      Courtemanche's time in Rwanda, where he worked as a journalist, may have produced the first great novel of the catastrophe that befell that country * * Guardian * *
      Haunting, graceful . . . with a journalist's unblinking eye and an appreciation of bitter irony * * New York Times * *
      An intense affair, urgent and nerve-wrackingly ominous, with a surprisingly boisterous humour * * Financial Times * *
      Courtemanche's work has an enormous quality . . . Read this book * * Spectator * *
      Very powerful . . . I urge you to read it * * Literary Review * *

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