Reviews

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize:

”The whole world wanted to believe in the miracle that was Rwanda – a country built from the wreckage and devastation that intertribal violence and ethnic cleansing had caused. The whole world ignored the few voices pointing out the silencing of political opponents through imprisonment, kidnapping or torture. To our shame,
our need for Rwanda to succeed far exceeded our desire or ability to see the cost at which that success was bought. In this extremely important and profoundly disturbing book, Michela Wrong sets out all the miss-steps that were ignored, all the flagrant human rights abuses that were overlooked and all the criminality for which excuses were found, until the new horrors that have been visited upon that country were perpetrated. Ms Wrong is not suggesting we become Afro-pessimists, but telling us that not only is the price of freedom eternal vigilance, but also that we must, in the words of Amilcar Cabral, ‘tell no lies, claim no easy victories.”

John le Carré, author of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy:

“A withering assault on the murderous Rwandan regime of Paul Kagame, and a melancholy love song to the lost dreams of the nations of the Great Lakes. Michela Wrong proves once again that she is an intrepid and highly professional researcher of the subject she knows best. Very driven, very impassioned.”

Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold’s Ghost:

“Imagine a journalist of the 1930s brave enough to investigate one of the mysterious assassinations of Stalin’s opponents who had fled abroad—and to tell that story to a world where too many people were enamored of the Soviet leader. Michela Wrong has taken on a similar job today: to use a killing to expose a man today seldom recognized as a ruthless dictator. Her skills as a writer and expert knowledge of Africa make this a chilling story.”

Rene Lemarchand, author of Rwanda and Burundi:

“The author raises the curtain on a dystopian landscape too long ignored and left ‘undisturbed’ by too many observers. Through countless interviews with key actors, including the central figure in her narrative, Patrick Karegeya, the author paints a frightening picture of Rwanda as a police state with all the hallmarks of the Stalinist era, where opponents to the regime are not disappeared because they are guilty but whose disappearance is sufficient proof of their culpability. Refreshingly free of jargon, the book breaks important new ground in the literature on Rwanda, in lively and suspenseful prose. This is revisionist history at its best. I cannot recommend it too highly.”

Miles Tendi, author of The Army and Politics in Zimbabwe: Mujuru, the Liberation Fighter and Kingmaker:

”Michela Wrong takes her readers on an absorbing political journey, in which Rwandan comrades-in-arms Paul Kagame and Patrick Karegeya steadily mutate into lethal adversaries upon achieving power. The story has echoes of historic mortal political fallouts – Stalin and Trotsky, Sankara and Compaore, Robespierre and Danton, Mugabe and Mujuru – but more importantly, it draws our attention to the significant structural problems created by ex-military leaders’ participation in the building of post-war democracy and peace.”

Filip Reyntjens, author of Political Governance in Post-Genocide Rwanda:

“A unique insight into many hitherto little-known dark sides of a profoundly criminal regime. Based on first hand observations and numerous interviews with key players, victims and witnesses, this book is an indictment of those complicit in ensuring President Kagame’s impunity during the last quarter century.”

Jason Stearns author of Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa:

”An intimate, clear-eyed chronicle of the violence and intrigue at the heart of Rwandan Patriotic Front’s history. This is perilous terrain; Wrong skillfully navigates amid myths and disinformation to splice together the stories of the men who came to rule Rwanda.”

Noel Twagiramungu, Director of the Leadership & Governance Policy Lab, Africa Center for Strategic Progress:

“In rich, searing prose, backed up by damning evidence and compelling anecdote, Michela Wrong exposes the sinister paradoxes of Kagame’s murderous “donor darling” regime. Her book lays out a roadmap for another collective ‘never again’ outcry yet to come.

Focussing on the happy beginning and tragic end of Patrick Karegeya — a spymaster strangled in a South African hotel room by a Mossad-like squad of operatives he helped establish — Do not Disturb is an insightful, scrupulous, stirring yet nuanced account of a reign of terror that set Rwanda and the whole African Great Lakes on fire, using four weapons of mass destruction: the cord, the hoe, the gun, the missile. Like Saturn, the regime is now devouring its children. This masterly investigative book should be widely read.”

Philippe Sands, author of The Ratline. Love, Lies and Justice on the Trail of a Nazi Fugitive:

“Extraordinary and utterly gripping, an excoriating work of immense courage and commitment, one that will surely make waves.”

Review on Africanarguments.org

“Review: Borderlines by Michela Wrong“
– 14th October, 2015

Review on www.nation.co.ke

“Review in Kenya’s Daily Nation“
– 6th November, 2015

Liz Blunt’s review in the Anglo-Ethiopian Society News File

“Anglo-Ethiopian Society News File“
– Winter, 2015

Review on Timeslive.co.za: South Africa’s “Times”

“New Territories: Story of an African fracas“
– 14th April, 2016

Review in The Times Literary Supplement

“Out of Africa” by Laura Jones
– 12th October, 2016

Reviews

Lindsey Hilsum, Channel Four news:

“I read Borderlines in a single sitting. Paula Shackleton is an anti-heroine for our times: clever, spiky, complex and flawed. Michela Wrong has gained a reputation as a fluid, perceptive writer of non-fiction – now she has added a twist of imagination to create a gripping novel.”

Iain Pears, author of “An Instance of the Fingerpost”:

“Borderlines is not only a compelling narrative, it is also a thoughtful investigation of the ambiguities inherent in Western engagement with Africa. Should we defend oppressive governments? Should we intervene in local disputes? Does the idea of justice have real meaning, or is it just a cover for deals between the powerful? Michela Wrong poses the questions in a stylish story, but Africa is no mere backdrop for Western angst. She brings the place and its characters to life in a novel which is as entertaining as it is thought-provoking.”

Lionel Shriver, author of “We Need to Talk About Kevin”:

“Few other writers could make a border dispute in the Hague have readers sitting on the edges of their chairs. And no other writer I know of is capable of making Africa seem just as accessibly screwed up as our own messy political back yards. “Borderlines” is beautifully written and tautly told. It helps to explain why refugees from the Horn are queuing for boats in Libya, and portrays the searing disappointment of fighting a liberation war for years only to be betrayed by your own side. That disappointment isn’t African; it’s universal.”

Review on Africanarguments.org

“Review: Borderlines by Michela Wrong“
– 14th October, 2015

Review on www.nation.co.ke

“Review in Kenya’s Daily Nation“
– 6th November, 2015

Liz Blunt’s review in the Anglo-Ethiopian Society News File

“Anglo-Ethiopian Society News File“
– Winter, 2015

Review on Timeslive.co.za: South Africa’s “Times”

“New Territories: Story of an African fracas“
– 14th April, 2016

Review in The Times Literary Supplement

“Out of Africa” by Laura Jones
– 12th October, 2016