You can read a review by René Bradshaw of my book ‘Cockroaches‘ on Asymptote Journal.

Read the whole review on Asymptote Journal

The problem with most memorials and public remembrances marking strategic mass killings—war and genocide being the two major examples from the twentieth century—is that they cannot, and do not, individualize death. In the case of genocide, failing to return names or individual histories to victims can recur to genocide’s inherent ambition to depersonalize, collectivize, and forget. As the trauma researcher Sara Gruyer compellingly suggests, the genocide memorials in Rwanda, including Nyamata, that preserve and expose the bones of the dead reflect a complicated, unbalanced distinction between commemorating the organized extermination of a population and commemorating “death in general.” In this circular logic, the memorials inadvertently reveal anew the necessity of an impossible testimony—the testimony of the dead.