A Sunday at the pool in Kigali

The swimming pool of the Mille-Collines hotel is a magnet for a privileged group of Kigali residents: aid-workers, Rwandan bourgeoisie, soldiers, prostitutes and assorted expatriates.

Among these patrons is the waitress Gentille, a beautiful Hutu often mistaken for a Tutsi, long admired by Valcourt, a Canadian journalist and film-maker.

As the two test the water with a love affair, civil unrest in Rwanda makes insidious, inevitable progress. An immensely powerful, cathartic denunciation of poverty, ignorance, global apathy and media blindness.

A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali is both a poignant love story and a stirring hymn to humanity - an essential read for anyone interested in exceptional literature of lasting value.