# Left to Tell by Immaculée Ilibagiza with Steve Erwin Source: https://thegisthub.com/books/left-to-tell-by-immaculee-ilibagiza Last updated: 2026-10-24 Published 2006 · 215 pages · ISBN 9781401908973 · Categories: Memoir and biography, Society and history Left to Tell is Immaculée Ilibagiza's memoir of surviving the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, hidden in a pastor's bathroom for three months, and of learning to forgive. For readers of survival stories and faith. ## The gist Immaculée Ilibagiza, a Tutsi university student, was home for Easter in April 1994 when the genocide against the Tutsi began in Rwanda. Her father sent her to a Hutu pastor, who hid her and seven other women in a tiny bathroom for about three months while killers searched the house. She prayed the rosary almost constantly, taught herself English and slowly let go of her hatred. When she came out, she learned that her parents and two of her brothers had been killed. She later met in prison a man who had led the killers of her family and told him she forgave him. ## Key ideas ### 1. Ordinary neighbors can turn to killing Ilibagiza grew up in a village where Hutu and Tutsi families lived side by side and her parents helped everyone. She learned she was Tutsi only when a teacher divided the class by group. In the years before 1994, extremist radio and newspapers called Tutsi cockroaches. When the genocide began on April 7, 1994, many killers were people she knew. The book shows how quickly propaganda and fear can turn neighbors against each other, and how the killing was organized as well as spontaneous. ### 2. One person's courage can save lives Pastor Murinzi, a Hutu, hid eight Tutsi women in a small bathroom in his house for about three months. He kept the secret even from most of his family and faced death if the killers found them. The book does not present him as a saint. He refused to hide men, including her brother Vianney, out of fear. But his decision kept the women alive. Ilibagiza's story shows that rescue during genocide often depended on the risks one person was willing to take. ### 3. Faith can carry a person through terror In the bathroom, Ilibagiza prayed her father's rosary almost without stopping. She describes faith as the force that kept fear and despair from overwhelming her. When killers searched the house and called her name, she prayed that they would not open the door. She writes of feeling God's presence and of visions she took as signs. Readers need not share her beliefs to see the point: an inner practice gave her a sense of meaning and control in a situation where she had none. ### 4. Forgiveness frees the person who forgives At first, Ilibagiza could not say the line of the Lord's Prayer about forgiving others, because she hated the killers. Through prayer, she came to see them as people who had lost their way. After the genocide, she met in prison a man who had led the group that killed her mother and brother, and she told him she forgave him. She separates forgiveness from justice. Courts punish crimes. Forgiveness, for her, is release from a hatred that would otherwise have destroyed her too. ### 5. Prepare for the future even when trapped Even while hiding, Ilibagiza planned for a life after the war. She asked the pastor for books and taught herself English with a dictionary, studying for hours each day. She believed she would need it to speak with English-speaking RPF soldiers and the wider world. She also imagined working for the United Nations. After the genocide, she did exactly that, first in Kigali and later in New York. The book presents this as hope turned into action. ### 6. Survivors carry loss for life When she came out of hiding, Ilibagiza learned that her parents, Leonard and Rose, and her brothers Damascene and Vianney had been killed. Only Aimable, studying in Senegal, survived. Her home was destroyed. The book does not hide the grief. She visited the places where her family died and arranged burials. Her faith did not remove the loss. It gave her a way to live with it and to build a new life. ### 7. Telling the story is a purpose The title reflects Ilibagiza's belief that she survived in order to tell what happened. She later moved to the United States, worked for the UN, married and had two children, and began speaking about the genocide and forgiveness around the world. The book is part testimony and part spiritual lesson. It records what happened to her family and village so that it is not forgotten, and it offers her path from hatred to forgiveness as one possible answer to atrocity. ## Questions this book answers ### What is Left to Tell about? Left to Tell is Immaculée Ilibagiza's memoir of surviving the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. She hid for about three months in a Hutu pastor's small bathroom with seven other women while most of her family was killed. The book describes her survival, her deepening Catholic faith and her decision to forgive the people who killed her family. ### Is Left to Tell a true story? Yes. Left to Tell is a memoir, written by Immaculée Ilibagiza with Steve Erwin, about her own experience of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. The genocide, the killing of her family and her time hiding in Pastor Murinzi's house are her first-hand account of real events. ### How long did Immaculée Ilibagiza hide in the bathroom? She hid for about three months, usually given as 91 days, from April to late June 1994. Eight women in all shared the small bathroom in Pastor Murinzi's house. They left when the pastor arranged for French soldiers to take them to a camp. ### What happened to Immaculée Ilibagiza's family? Her parents, Leonard and Rose, and her brothers Damascene and Vianney were killed in the genocide. Her eldest brother, Aimable, survived because he was studying in Senegal. Ilibagiza learned the details after she came out of hiding, and she later returned to her village to bury her family. ### What is the main message of Left to Tell? The main message is that faith and forgiveness can free a person from hatred, even after atrocity. Ilibagiza describes how prayer carried her through hiding and how she came to forgive the killers, including a man who led the group that killed her mother and brother. She separates forgiveness from justice, which belongs to the courts. ## Full summary ### A survivor's account Left to Tell is Immaculée Ilibagiza's memoir of surviving the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. She wrote it with the American writer Steve Erwin, and it was published in 2006 with the subtitle Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust. It is both a survival story and a spiritual one. Ilibagiza spent about three months hidden in a small bathroom with seven other women while most of her family was killed. She came out of hiding with a deep Catholic faith and the conviction that she had to forgive. The genocide began on April 7, 1994, the morning after a plane carrying Rwanda's president, Juvénal Habyarimana, was shot down near Kigali. Over about 100 days, Hutu extremist militias, soldiers and ordinary civilians killed an estimated 800,000 or more people, most of them Tutsi, along with moderate Hutu who opposed the killing. The killing ended in July 1994, when the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a Tutsi-led rebel army, took control of the country. The book gives only a brief account of the history behind the violence. Hutu and Tutsi share a language, a religion and a country. Under Belgian colonial rule, the division between them hardened into fixed categories, and identity cards recorded each person's group. After independence, Tutsi faced waves of violence and discrimination, and many fled abroad. The RPF grew out of those exiles. Ilibagiza tells this history through what she saw as a child, not as an analysis. The book has 24 chapters and an epilogue. It came out with Hay House, with a foreword by the self-help author Wayne Dyer. ### Childhood in Mataba Ilibagiza grew up in the village of Mataba, in western Rwanda near Lake Kivu. Her parents, Leonard and Rose, were teachers and respected figures in the community. They were devout Catholics who helped neighbors of both groups. She had three brothers: Aimable, the eldest; Damascene, who was her closest friend; and Vianney, the youngest. She describes a happy childhood in which ethnicity seemed unimportant. She did not learn that she was Tutsi until a teacher at school divided the class by ethnic group. As she grew older, she saw the discrimination that Tutsi faced in schools and jobs. Her parents told her not to dwell on it. She was a strong student and won a place at the National University of Rwanda in Butare, where she studied engineering. Aimable won a scholarship to study in Senegal, which would later save his life. Through the early 1990s, tension rose. A civil war between the government and the RPF had begun in 1990, and extremist radio stations and newspapers spread hatred against Tutsi, calling them cockroaches. ### April 1994: the pastor's bathroom In April 1994, Ilibagiza was home for the Easter holiday. When news came that the president had been killed, the killing began within hours. Her father sent her to the house of a local Hutu pastor, **Pastor Murinzi**, hoping he would protect her. Her brother Vianney and a friend went with her, but the pastor said he could not hide men, and they had to leave. The pastor hid Ilibagiza and five other Tutsi women in a small bathroom in his house, and two more joined later. The room was tiny, about 3 feet by 4 feet, with space only to stand or crouch. A wardrobe was placed in front of the door to hide it. The women could not speak above a whisper or flush the toilet when others were in the house. The pastor kept the hiding place secret even from most of his own family. They stayed there for 91 days. Several times, killers searched the house. Ilibagiza describes hearing them call her name and boast that they had killed many Tutsi. She prayed constantly. She describes the searches as moments when she felt only her prayers kept the killers from opening the door. ### Faith in the dark The center of the book is Ilibagiza's inner life in the bathroom. She had a rosary from her father, and she began to pray it almost without stopping, sometimes for most of the day. She describes a struggle between faith and despair. At first she was filled with fear and with hatred for the killers. She found she could not pray the words of the Lord's Prayer about forgiving others, because she did not forgive them. Over time, through prayer, she describes a change. She came to see the killers as people who had lost their way, and she prayed for them. She writes that she felt God's presence and that this gave her peace even while the killing went on outside. She also describes visions and dreams that she took as signs. She used the time to learn English. The pastor gave her a dictionary and other books, and she studied them for hours each day. She believed that after the war she would need to speak with the English-speaking RPF soldiers and with the outside world. She also began to imagine a future in which she would work for the United Nations. From the pastor and from the sounds outside, she learned what was happening across the country. She began to understand that her family was probably dead. ### Leaving the bathroom In late June, French soldiers arrived in the area as part of a mission known as Opération Turquoise. The pastor made contact with them. In the middle of the night, he led the women out of the house to the French camp. Ilibagiza writes that she went into the bathroom weighing about 115 pounds and came out weighing about 65. She spent time in a French camp and was later taken toward an RPF-controlled area with other survivors. The journey was dangerous, and she describes moments when she again expected to die. ### Learning what was lost After the genocide ended, Ilibagiza learned the details of her family's fate. Her mother, Rose, and her brother Damascene had been killed. Her father, Leonard, had been killed too, and so had Vianney. Only Aimable, studying in Senegal, survived. Her family home was destroyed. She describes grief that she says only faith made bearable. She returned to her village and visited the places where her family had died, and she arranged burials. ### Forgiveness The book's most cited scene takes place in a prison. Ilibagiza visited the jail in Kibuye with **Semana**, the regional official who arranged the meeting. Semana brought out **Felicien**, a prosperous Hutu businessman she had known before the war, who had led the gang that killed her mother and Damascene. Semana expected her to curse or strike him. Instead, she touched his hand and told him that she forgave him. Semana was angry and asked how she could do that. She answered that forgiveness was all she had to give. She presents forgiveness not as excusing the crimes or as giving up on justice. The courts and prisons were for justice. Forgiveness, for her, was a release from hatred, which she says would otherwise have consumed her too. ### A new life Ilibagiza moved to Kigali and found a job at the United Nations, as she had imagined in the bathroom. She was reunited with Aimable. In 1998 she moved to the United States, where she continued to work for the UN in New York. She married an American, Bryan Black, and they have two children. The book ends with her hopes for reconciliation in Rwanda and her belief that her survival had a purpose: to tell her story. After the book's success, she became a public speaker on faith and forgiveness and wrote further books, including Led by Faith, which continues her story after the genocide. She also set up a charity to support orphans in Rwanda. ### What the critics say Most readers and reviewers respond to the book's message of faith and forgiveness. Some reviewers find the religious framing so dominant that it leaves little room for the political and historical causes of the genocide, which the book explains only briefly. Others note that the forgiveness narrative is one survivor's personal path and that many Rwandan survivors have found forgiveness harder or have chosen differently. The writing is plain, and some readers find parts of the inner narrative repetitive. ### Who should read it Read it if you want a first-hand account of the genocide against the Tutsi told through one survivor's experience and faith. It is suitable for older students and for readers interested in forgiveness and religious belief under extreme conditions. ## Do this week - Read a short history of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi this week so you understand the context of Ilibagiza's story. - Name one person you resent, and write a paragraph about what holding that resentment costs you. - Set aside ten minutes a day this week for a quiet practice, such as prayer, meditation or journaling, as an anchor in stressful moments. - Start learning one skill that your future self will need, as Ilibagiza did with English, and practice it daily this week. - Notice language this week that labels a group of people as less than human, and question it when you hear it. Summary by The Gist Hub (https://thegisthub.com). In our own words, not the book's text.