Books 11.04.21 35

Members of the National Congress with posters of murdered party co-founder Patrick Karegeya In brief in 2014. by Hephzibah Alexander Joe/ Anderson AFP/Getty

The Book of Diffi cult Fruit: Arguments for the Tart, Tender, and Unruly Kate Lebo Rwandans were planning how to Pan Macmillan, £14.99 , pp416 take power in the homeland that neither of them really knew. In late Shove over, velvety peaches 1990, some of the most important and plump strawberries. Lebo , members of Museveni’s offi cer corps an award-winning US baker and disappeared across the border to writer , is interested in fruit that is attack Rwanda. Four years later, wild and tough, forbidding rather Kagame emerged to the outside than forbidden. Gathering 26 of world as the hero who put an end to her favourites – among them the genocide. medlars that need to rot in order Kagame made his old schoolmate to sweeten – she whips up a his external intelligence chief. zingy blend of natural, culinary Wrong portrays Karegeya as an and personal history. Notes accomplished manipulator of on the medicinal properties of foreign politicians in maintaining these fruits add a witchy kick, the saviour myth, even as he and recipes cover glue and sinus grew disillusioned with political washes along with huckleberry Africa repression and killings. pie. It’s a prickly, piquant delight. The extent of Karegeya’s own complicity is never quite clear, but Early Morning Riser he is hardly an innocent party either Katherine Heiny to the RPF’s slaughter of Hutu Fourth Estate , £14.99, pp336 civilians or in serving a president he The case against a calls a dictator and assassin. On the surface, Heiny ’s second As Karegeya tells it, the breaking novel exudes sitcom cosiness. point came with the RPF’s killing of Schoolteacher Jane hooks old Ugandan comrades as the two up with Duncan , a furniture countries fought over their plunder restorer, on the very afternoon strongman saviour of the mineral-rich Democratic that she moves to Boyne City. Republic of the Congo. The spy Th anks to his good looks and chief’s dissent lands him in prison pleasant ways, marriage- Michela Wrong uses Do Not Disturb is part murder racist pandering to an authoritarian and exile in South Africa, where he averse Duncan has slept with mystery and part sweeping history leader helped entrench his power and other disillusioned Rwandan nearly every woman there. a dissident’s murder of an extended family tragedy and spread confl ict across the offi cials pose a particular danger Even so, over some 20 years, to focus her attack on spread over two countries, three region. As for its much vaunted to Kagame. Karegeya quite literally he and Jane build a life together, wars, four decades and a genocide. development policies, Wrong knew where the bodies were riding out life’s calamities and Rwanda’s president Along the way, Wrong asks hard concludes that Rwanda’s economy buried. A few years later, he was embracing a found family of in this questions about the true nature of is held together by . “The sad among them. eccentrics. With its deadpan fascinating study, Kagame’s rule and the claims made thing about the west’s current Wrong marvels at the extent to charm and sharp truths, it’s like for Rwanda’s rebirth. gushing admiration for strongman which western politicians have Anne Tyler with added grunge. writes Chris McGreal For years, guilt-ridden politicians rule in central Africa is its historical been willing to give a pass to in the west fawned over Kagame as naivety,” she writes. Kagame and what she describes as Sex Robots & Vegan Meat: a national saviour after his Rwandan Wrong makes her case with a his criminal regime. “It’s all very Adventures at the Frontier Do Not Disturb: The Story of a Patriotic Front (RPF) drove from deep investigation of the murder of well talking about human rights of Birth, Food, Sex and Political Murder and an African power the Hutu extremists who a charming, manipulative, roguish but the fundamental, primary Death Regime Gone Bad slaughtered around 800,000 Tutsis man who also had blood on his human right is the right to be Jenny Kleeman Michela Wrong as the UN looked on. Tony Blair hands. Karegeya grew up among free from the threat of violence,” Picador, £9.99, pp368 Fourth Estate, £20, pp502 called him a “visionary leader” even Tutsi exiles in Uganda after his Andrew Mitchell, the Conservative (paperback) as the RPF faced its own accusations ancestors fl ed Rwanda to escape former international development When Rwanda’s former intelligence of war crimes and Kagame locked Belgian rule. Kagame was a more secretary, tells Wrong. “As far as I’m During a fi ve-year quest, British chief was found strangled in a plush up political opponents or worse. recent arrival when his family was concerned, Kagame is a hero for journalist and fi lm-maker Johannesburg hotel room, there was “I don’t ignore all those driven out by violent anti-Tutsi ending the violence.” Kleeman has sampled “clean” only ever one real suspect. Patrick criticisms,” Blair said in 2010 . “But purges in the run-up to Rwanda’s Do Not Disturb will make chicken nuggets, met a hyperreal Karegeya spent years dodging I do think you’ve got to recognise independence in 1962. Their uncomfortable reading for those silicone sex doll , explored a assassination attempts evidently that Rwanda is an immensely mothers were friends and the boys who still adhere to that view, even 3D-printed “suicide pod”, and set in motion by his childhood special case because of the genocide. attended the same school. Years if some will argue that Wrong observed an artifi cial womb schoolmate, Rwanda’s eternal ruler, Secondly, you can’t argue with the later, they were drawn to Yoweri does not take enough account of that promises to make childbirth Paul Kagame . fact that Rwanda has gone on a Museveni’s rebel army as it fought Rwanda’s efforts to address the as simple as “opening a Ziploc Karegeya even had tapes of remarkable path of development.” its way to power in Uganda in 1986 . legacy of genocide and a country bag”. Th oughtful scepticism former intelligence colleagues Bill Clinton called Kagame “one of Kagame and Karegeya served awash in murderers. For all that, makes her a savvy guide, and her plotting his death. For all that, the the greatest leaders of our time”. Museveni’s new government as we can be pretty certain one person fresh insights into, for example, ex-spy master allowed himself to Wrong is having none of it. She senior intelligence offi cials, but won’t care. Asked about Karegeya’s disruptive technology’s gender be tricked into attending his own writes that the west’s implicitly it wasn’t long before the exiled murder, Rwanda’s president denied dimension underpin provocative murder on the last day of 2013 . responsibility. Then Kagame added takes on progress. Absorbing. Far too many of Kagame’s former a comment about his old comrade in allies turned opponents have met Wrong writes that the west’s arms. “I actually wish Rwanda did it. To order Th e Book of Diffi cult untimely ends for the man who I really wish it.” Fruit for £13.04, Early Morning has dominated Rwanda since the Riser for £13.04 or Sex Robots genocide in 1994 not to be the implicitly racist pandering to Chris McGreal is ’s & Vegan Meat for £9.29 go to prime suspect. But, as Michela former Africa correspondent. To guardianbookshop.com or call Wrong’s engrossing and revelatory an authoritarian leader order Do Not Disturb for £17.40 go 020-3176 3837 investigation reveals, Karegeya’s to guardianbookshop.com or call killing was of a different order. helped entrench his power 020-3176 3837