Louise Mushikiwabo and Jack Kramer talk to Robert Siegel about their book, Rwanda Means the Universe: A Native's Memoir of Blood and Bloodlines. They discuss the years of peaceful coexistence between the Bahutu and Batutsi in Rwanda, and events leading up to the massacre of the Tutsi people between April and June 1994.
Mushikiwabo, who is Tutsi, was born and raised in Kigali, Rwanda; journalist Jack Kramer covered the war there. The book is a tribute to Mushikiwabo's family and friends, who were among the 800,000 people who perished in the violence. She explains how a letter from her brother, received years after his death, launched a seven-year collaboration with Kramer to write the book.
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