Strength in What Remains (2009) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

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People edit see section history

• Deogratias: Burundian genocide survivor, moves to New York in search of the American Dream
• Charlie Wolf: Add a description of this character.
• Sharon
• Muhammad
• Nancy Wolf
• Jean
• Claude
• Antoine
• Lonjino
• Emmanuel
• Goss
• Murambi
• Ndadaye
• James O'malley
• Paul Farmer
• Lelia
• Zacharie
• Kagame
• Den
• Martha
• Mutaho

Quotes edit see section history

• “In Deo's mind, there was danger everywhere. If his heightened sense of drama was an inborn trait, it had certainly been nourished.”

• “Everything was a crisis, and nothing that wasn't a crisis mattered.”

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• “Social exclusion and the ethnicization of politics … are the two central elements to violent conflict in Burundi and Rwanda that, like electrons, spin around a core of massive poverty and institutional weakness.”

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• “Really, I trained my mind to be flexible,” Deo said. “Some of the stuff I learned was, be willing to know that even when you think you know for sure, always leave room for uncertainty. And someone who always agrees with you is not necessarily your friend. You can always learn something good in a hard time, if you survive it. And there is really no mathematical formula you can follow to achieve what you want. Just trial and error.”

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• too—but whether we feel it or not, we are surrounded by this tremendously loving presence, and that covers every second of every day. Of everybody.”

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• “In societies where the rule of law is close to nonexistent and security forces are neither effective nor trusted, small groups of people willing to use violence can create enough chaos and fear to force everyone into making violent choices.”

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• “When too much is too much or too bad is too bad, we laugh as if it was too good. You just laugh instead of crying. Accidents of birth.”

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• In order to go on with our lives, we are always capable of making the ominous into the merely strange.

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• It is possible to hate people for their weakness. They can excite your fears about yourself.

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• “By all means, let’s do prevention! Prevent people from suffering! Don’t wait for people to feel like their lives are not worth living. Once they feel that way, how are they going to feel about another person’s life?”

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• A lot of Western thought and psychological advice assume that it is healthy to flush out and dissect one’s memories, and maybe this is true. And yet for all that, I began to have a simultaneous and opposite feeling: that there was such a thing as too much remembering, that too much of it could suffocate a person, and indeed a culture. Our tour of sites began to seem relentless. Observing Deo’s endlessly renewed sorrow, I found myself thinking that there was something also to be said for a culture with a word like gusimbura.

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• “Distracting pain with pain,” Deo called this practice. It was common among peasants in Rwanda and Burundi, who had little access to pharmacology but a lot of experience with pain. It was a gruesome and harmful form of palliation, and for Deo it expressed a psychological truth with broad application—that pains exist in layers, with the most excruciating at the top obscuring the pains beneath.

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

• Burundi
• Rwanda
• Bujumbura
• New York City
• Butanza
• Kayanza
• Harlem
• Columbia
• Africa
• Congo
• Sangaza
• United States
• Loniino
• Haiti
• Uganda
• Nigeria
• Central Park
• America
• Butare
• Tanzania
• Kibimba
• Belgium
• France
• Kirundi
• Upper East Side
• Lake Tanganyika
• Iburaya
• Kigali
• Black Hole
• Runda
• Senegal

Organizations edit see section history

• Village Health Works: Vision: To bring health to the rural village of Kigutu and surrounding areas through collaborative efforts between the community itself and people in the United States who share the vision that all people, including the most impoverished, are entitled to the highest standards of health in their pursuit of happy and productive lives.
• Partners In Health: Partners In Health (PIH) is a Boston, Massachusetts-based non-profit health care organization dedicated to providing a "preferential option for the poor". It was founded in 1987 by Dr. Paul Farmer, Ophelia Dahl, Thomas J. White, Todd McCormack, and Dr. Jim Kim.

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Series & Lists edit see section history

List the series to which this book belongs.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Tracy Kidder (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Awards edit see section history

• Amazon.com's Best Books (November 2009: Editors' Picks, #2)
• National Book Critics Circle Award (Finalist, 2009: General Nonfiction)

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
• Dewey: 305.8967572073

Notes for Parents edit see section history

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Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Biographies & Memoirs › Professionals & Academics › Medical
• Books › History › Africa › East Africa
• Books › Biographies & Memoirs › Ethnic & National
• Books › Medicine

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