Courrier International, France
Feb 18 2008

How to talk about genocide ?

The news reporter Jean Hatzfeld has written several books on the
genocide in Rwanda which left 800,000 dead in 1994. Interviewed by
Colette Braeckman, he explains that prose, as opposed to journalistic
writing, allowed him to "approach the reality of genocide. (…) A
journalist is first and foremost a go-between, someone who links
those who experience events and the readers, who tries his or her
best to answer questions that readers might ask. Facing a genocide,
there is always a lapse of time during which readers do not want to
hear anything, whether about the Shoah, the Armenian genocide, or
Rwanda, for event is too unthinkable, too exceptional. The journalist
is also disarmed … . In literature, instead of asking oneself the
questions that others pose, as a journalist does, you ask your own
questions. In fact, you write for yourself, first and foremost. It is
not the same approach."

ics/article.asp?langue=uk&publication=18/02/20 08&cat=CULTURE&pi=0

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress