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Prize-winning novelist and short-story writer Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse鈥檚 memoir documents and reconstructs her escape, at the age of fifteen, from the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.

The Convoy reflects on the act of bearing witness and the value hidden in fragments of the past. Thirty years on from the genocide, Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse was able to find and listen to many of the people who played a role in securing her safety: men and women of exceptional courage.

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About the book:

鈥淭his book is a precious thing. A telling of essential truths, an act of generosity and of courage. Out of great tragedy Beata has fashioned a testament of enduring love鈥�

- FERGAL KEANE
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鈥淎n extraordinarily powerful book, a journey of memory and investigation and discovery; original, humane, and beautifully written鈥�

- PHILIPPE SANDS

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鈥淎 moving and powerful account of the violence of the genocide in Rwanda and of the aftermath for the survivors. Its descriptions of the terror of the days in hiding are unforgettable鈥�

- ABDULRAZAK GURNAH, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature

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鈥淭he Convoy is a tour de force, giving equal weight to individual and collective experience with unparalleled clarity, dignity, and lightness of touch. But I believe that it does more, and better, than that. The Convoy represents literature at its finest from the first sentence to the last鈥�

- MOHAMED MBOUGAR SARR, winner of the Prix Goncourt

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Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse was fifteen at the height of the genocide inflicted on the Tutsi people in Rwanda. Hundreds of thousands of Tutsi were killed in a period of only three months. The lives of Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse and her mother were a sleepless nightmare 鈥� until a place was eventually found for them on a convoy to safety.

More than a decade later, after rebuilding her life in France, Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse was ready to begin the process of reconstructing her incomplete memories of the escape and establishing community with other survivors. She is now a poet and a prize-winning novelist, but not before this has she written about her own history. Beginning by making contact with the B.B.C. team which filmed the convoy, then by tracking down aid workers, journalists and fellow escapees and scouring archives in a search for photographs of her crossing of the border, the author pieces together records and personal accounts to try to comprehend the chaos that overtook Rwanda at the time of the genocide.

Winner of the Grand Prix de l鈥橦茅ro茂ne Madame Figaro, the Prix Montluc R茅sistance et Libert茅 (special jury prize), the Prix France T茅l茅visions and the Prix du Roman M茅tis des Lecteurs Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse in the U.K..