Land of a Thousand Hills

“Carr has lived an extraordinary life… Carr and her niece Ann Howard Halsey elegantly and objectively write of the royal Rwandan ceremonies, the weddings and tribal dances, as well as Carr’s associations with European diplomats and ambassadors and the ‘high society’ of wealthy landowners. Her descriptions of the day-to-day life at the plantation allow the reader to learn about the lives of the Hutus that worked for her and the neighboring Tutsis whose cattle grazed close by.”—Michelle Kaske, Booklist

“An intriguing memoir of a European woman plantation owner in Rwanda over the past half-century, written with grace and self-assurance… She appreciates the various shades of gray that color her region’s circumstances: she provides a neat, crisp summation of Hutu-Tutsi enmity and its cruel consequences over their 400-year association, and she maps Belgian colonial desires in the Congo and Rwanda and Burundi. She exudes common sense and integrity in matters of politics and business (she is invariably on the brink), then softens the story by lacing it with personal relationships (including a rocky but intense one with Dian Fossey) and life at her compound, where bougainvillea twine with the climbing roses, crested cranes rule the sky, elephants are garden pests, and an active volcano lights the night horizon. A quiet and elegant beauty of a memoir, with a dignity that is at once antique and enviable.”—Kirkus Reviews

Rosamond Halsey Carr was an American humanitarian and author, as well as the last of the foreign plantation owners in Rwanda, where she ran a children’s orphanage until her death in 2006.

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