Sunday at the Pool in Kigali
Study Questions

Preface, Chapter One

1. Comment on the Preface’s assertion that the novel is fiction but also a chronicle and eyewitness report.

2. Describe in detail the novel’s point of view.

3. How is the hotel depicted in the first chapter of the novel?
   Compare this depiction with the one in Hotel Rwanda.

4. Early on, the narrator says that the women are in danger, stalked. What does he mean?
   Why do you think the novel emphasizes sex to the degree that it does?

5. How are the Whites described in the opening of the novel? Valcourt?

6. How are the Rwandans at the hotel depicted?

7. How is the UN Commander characterized here? Why do you think he is not named?

Chapter Two

1. What is Valcourt’s “one great passion”?

2. How is Rwanda’s colonial history presented?

3. What did Kawa (and Célestin) learn from the Big Book by the Belgian doctor? How does he respond?

4. What is Gentille’s predicament? How does Valcourt respond?

5. How do you view the beginning of the Valcourt-Gentille relationship?

Chapter Three

1. Describe Méthode’s condition. What does he hope for?

2. Discuss the Rwanda-Holocaust comparison on page 43.

3. How is the Whites’ view of Africa described on page 46?

4. Describe Méthode’s Last Supper.

5. What does the narrator speculate about the Belgian Kigali Hospital Centre doctor’s attitude toward AIDS on pages 53-54? Why?

6. Why do you think the sex described in Chapter 3, as elsewhere, is done so graphically?

Chapter Four

1. What does Méthode say in his videotaped farewell speech?

2. What does Valcourt promise?

3. What is Landouald’s advice to Valcourt? What does he foresee?

4. What are the radios and newspapers saying?

5. What is the lie Valcourt tells himself? Is this his insight or the narrator’s?

6. How does Gentille feel about her beauty?

7. Why does Valcourt visit the prosecutor’s office? How does the assistant prosecutor respond? What does he say about Valcourt, Canada, Gentille, Tutsis?

8. What do they see as they are leaving the office?

Chapter Five

1. Of what does Cyprien inform Valcourt?

2. What is described on page 87?

3. What does Cyprien say about life and death?

4. What lesson has Cyprien learned from childhood?

5. What is the corvée?

6. How is France referred to on page 97?

7. What happens to Cyprien and his family? Why? How does the text represent their murders?

Chapter Six

1. How does Valcourt react to Cyprien’s murder?

2. Do you agree with his view that we can all become killers?

3. How does the police sergeant explain their deaths? Why was the daughter spared?

4. How does Raphael respond to the news of Cyprien’s death?

5. After his visit with the deputy prosecutor, why does Valcourt call himself a fool?

6. How does the Canadian general react to Valcourt?

7. How is Colonel Théoneste characterized?

8. What is the narrator’s, or Valcourt’s, view of the situation on page 116?

9. Who is Jean Lamarre? How are he and his wife depicted?

10. What do Lamarre and Valcourt debate on pages 125-6?

11. What do Lamarre and Valcourt see at the hospital?

12. What is Justin’s vengeance? What role does Valcourt play in Marie-Ange’s fate? (also see pages 140-1)

13. Why was Brother Cardinal killed? How is his death characterized on page 135?

14. Why does Valcourt not leave Rwanda? Why does he not take Gentille away?

Chapter 7

1. Valcourt tells Gentille in his letter, “My country is here.” What might he mean, and do you believe him?

2. What does the narrator say about “left-leaning Christians” like Valcourt?

3. What story does Valcourt tell to Raphael and the others, and what impact did this experience have on him?

4. Comment on the narrator’s assertion that these friends were “using doom and horror to reaffirm life.” (page 150)

Chapter 8

1. What has Emérita realized? (see page 158)

2. How is Father Louis and his work characterized? What does he say about “reasonable people”?

3. What has Colonel Théoneste confided to Father Louis?

4. What does the narrator wonder on pages 165-6?

5. What has Emérita done, and what happens to her as a result?

Chapter 9

1. What does Madame the Consul tell the Canadians at the hotel? What does she advise Valcourt regarding the death of Brother François? How does Elise respond?

2. What rhetorical question does Bernadette address to Elise and Valcourt? (page 182)

3. How does Valcourt now feel about leaving Rwanda? What does he say to Gentille?

Chapter 10

1. What does Gentille’s cousin Stratton inform us about her family? How does he view his own ethnicity?

2. What does the Belgian university teacher say on page 197?

3. What does Jean-Damascène say about Kawa’s plan? How does he characterize the changes brought about in 1959? What does he remind us about the RPF leadership?
   Comment on his statement that “we must flee the madness that invents people and tribes.” (page 201)

4. Comment on the following: “But everything would have to explode before the blind and the deaf would finally see and hear the fire and screams rising from the hell they had created.” (page 204) To whom do we ascribe this view?

Chapter 11

1. What process, specifically, has begun at the beginning of Chapter 11? What are Colonel Athanase’s instructions?

2. What are some of the things Valcourt hears on Radio Milles-Collines?

3. What is Valcourt’s state of mind as he and Gentille are returning to Kigali? (see pages 212-3)

4. What is the radio broadcasting on page 214?

5. What do Victor and Valcourt encounter on their drive through Kigali?

6. How is Victor characterized? Does he resemble the main character from the film?

7. What are the international news agencies saying about the crisis on pages 228-9?

8. What happens to Valcourt and Gentille at the end of the chapter?

Chapter 12

1. Describe the conditions Valcourt encounters in the refugee camps.

2. How is the genocide described on page 235? What happened at many of the churches?

3. What does Valcourt learn from his friends about Gentille’s fate?

4. How is Gentille’s diary described at the end of the chapter?

Chapter 13

1. Discuss Gentille’s journal entries, especially April 14 and 15.

2. What happens to her after she leaves Modeste’s?

Chapter 14

1. What does Victor want from Valcourt? Why? How does Valcourt feel?

2. What has happened to many of the former government leaders and soldiers?

3. How does Modeste react to Valcourt?

4. How does Valcourt feel about the new Tutsi rulers?

5. What has become of Gentille? What does she say to Valcourt?

6. What does Valcourt now do in Rwanda?