An Ordinary Man, Paul Rusesabagina
An Ordinary Man, Paul Rusesabagina
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An Ordinary Man
An Autobiography

Author: Paul Rusesabagina, Tom Zoellner

Narrator: Dominic Hoffman

Unabridged: 7 hr 42 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Published: 04/06/2006


Synopsis

The remarkable autobiography of the globally-recognized human rights champion whose heroism inspired the film Hotel Rwanda

“Fascinating…your book is called An Ordinary Man, yet you took on an extraordinary feat with courage, determination, and diplomacy.” – Oprah, O, The Oprah Magazine

As Rwanda was thrown into chaos during the 1994 genocide, Rusesabagina, a hotel manager, turned the luxurious Hotel Milles Collines into a refuge for more than 1,200 Tutsi and moderate Hutu refugees, while fending off their would-be killers with a combination of diplomacy and deception. In An Ordinary Man, he tells the story of his childhood, retraces his accidental path to heroism, revisits the 100 days in which he was the only thing standing between his “guests” and a hideous death, and recounts his subsequent life as a refugee and activist.

About The Author

Paul Rusesabagina has received many awards and honors, including  the National Civil Rights Museum Freedom Award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Rescuer of Humanity Award and the The Lantos Human Rights Prize. He formed the Hotel Rwanda Rusesabagina Foundation to provide voice to victims of genocide and support peace efforts in Rwanda and throughout the world.Tom Zoellner is the author of eight nonfiction books, including Island on Fire: The Revolt that Ended Slavery in the British Empireand works as a professor at Chapman University and Dartmouth College.


Reviews

Goodreads review by emma on January 24, 2022

this was one of the only actually diverse books we read in high school - both in a global perspective way and in a non-white way - and i am very glad and grateful we did. so powerful. part of a series i'm doing in which i review books i read a long time ago......more

Goodreads review by Cherisa on July 17, 2024

A blended history of crimes against Rwanda by colonial powers and the UN, the genocide, political and cultural context, and the memoir of one man’s efforts to do what he could against the darkness. I really loved how he refused the mantle of hero, insisting he is only an ordinary man. But he drew on......more

Goodreads review by Judith on April 19, 2020

The title was, to me, offputting initially. It seemed like false modesty. "Oh, but I'm just an ordinary man...". But I changed my mind after listening. Rusesabagina saved over a twelve hundred people from death during the short massacre in Rwanda in 1994. He calculated that he saved a matter of a fe......more

Goodreads review by Margie on July 22, 2012

It's hard to review a true story about something terrible. An Ordinary Man: An Autobiography, though, isn't a book about the Rwandan massacre; it's a book about Paul Rusesabagina's experience of it. His voice, his personality, his clear-sightedness all come through brilliantly in this co-written aut......more

Goodreads review by Joanna on March 27, 2008

First, listening to this book on audio was extremely powerful. So much so that I actually had to stop the CD, stop the car, then turn it back on to listen to because it was so moving and was making it hard for me to concentrate on driving. The author manages to use direct language to tell his amazin......more


Quotes

Rusesabagina . . . weaves his country’s history with his personal history into a rich narrative that attempts to explain the unexplainable. . . . The book’s emotional power comes from his understatement and humility. (The Boston Globe)

An extraordinary cautionary tale. (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

Rusesabagina’s story of survival amid manic slaughter is as awful as it is gripping. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

Read this book. It will humble and inspire you. (Sunday Telegraph, London)

Extraordinary—horrific and tragic, but also inspiring, because Rusesabagina refuses to give up his belief in the basic decency of humanity. (The Times, London)