Land of a Thousand Hills: My Life in Rwanda [Hardcover]

Rosamond Halsey Carr (Author), Ann Howard Halsey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1999

A latter-day Out of Africa recalls its author's fifty years in the continent's most beautiful and most tormented nation

When Rosamond Halsey Carr first arrived in Africa, she didn't realize she would spend the rest of her life there. As a young fashion illustrator living in New York City in the 1940s, she seemed the least likely candidate for such a life of adventure. But marriage to a hunter-explorer took her to what was then the Belgian Congo, and divorce left her determined to stay on, in neighboring Rwanda, as the manager of a flower plantation. In the ensuing half century she witnessed the decline and fall of colonialism, the wars for independence, the loss of her friend Dian Fossey and the relentless clashes of the Hutus and Tutsis. And, finally, 1994's horrific genocide--of which she provides a personal, first-hand account that is unparalleled and underscores her continued devotion to the country by her decision to care for more than one hundred of its orphaned children.

Land of a Thousand Hills unfolds against the backdrop of Rwanda's history from the royal Tutsi dynasty to the present, a landscape whose magic is aptly evoked. It is the epic story of a woman alone in an exotic land, struggling to survive untold hardships only to emerge with an extraordinary love for her adopted country and its people.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

If you enjoyed Out of Africa and West with the Night, here's another amazing woman's story of her adventurous African life. Rosamond Halsey Carr left her job as a young New York City fashion illustrator in the 1940s to join her hunter-explorer husband in the Belgian Congo; after their divorce, she decided to stay on in neighboring Rwanda as the manager of a flower plantation. For the next 50 years she lived an extraordinary life, witnessing the fall of colonialism, the loss of her friend Dian Fossey, and the relentless clashes between the Hutus and the Tutsis. Although this book includes a poignant insider's account of the events surrounding the horrific 1994 genocide, it also provides a beautiful portrait of the Rwanda that was--and still is. After being evacuated during the genocide, Carr returned to Rwanda and, at age 82, rebuilt her home from the ground up, intent on opening a home for some 100 orphaned children.

Carr's humble tenacity and bold strength animate her historical, cultural, and personal accounts. Arriving in Africa in 1949, she witnesses the traditions of the royal Tutsi dynasty, sails up the Congo to camp in pygmy villages, encounters leopards, mingles with European aristocrats, finds and loses love, and lives through Congo independence and civil war. Her passion for the country and its people makes for a life story that is both tragic and hopeful, and full of interesting details that animate the spirit of Rwanda. --Kathryn True

From Publishers Weekly

Fifty years ago, New Jersey socialite and fashion designer Rosamond Halsey Carr sailed from Brooklyn Harbor with four new cotton dresses, a lifelong supply of cold cream and hopes of injecting passion into her marriage with British big-game hunter Kenneth Carr. Although conjugal bliss eluded her, the hills of central Africa captured her heart, and she passed up safety, security and marriage with a later love to stay in Rwanda. Carr saw at close handAlong before the genocide of 1994Athe warfare between Hutu and Tutsi in 1959, violence spilling over from the Congo during the 1960s and independence for RwandaAon four days' noticeAin 1962. Rich in details about elephants, marriage customs and the author's flower plantation, this charming memoir transports readers to the land where Dian Fossey (whom Carr knew and profiles here) studied her gorillas. The horror of 1994 forced Carr off her plantation and out of the country for a few months, but she is now back, running an orphanage for victims' children she started in an old barn. By today's confessional standards, Carr, who is 86, is reticent about her personal life. Literary flourishes are few here; rather, along with her niece, Halsey, she writes simply and evocatively, entertaining readers with vignettes about her European, African and American acquaintances. Money did not come easily to Carr, but out of Africa has come an abundance of spirit. First serial to Vogue.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Viking Penguin Books; First edition. edition (1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670887803
• ISBN-13: 978-0670887804
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #869,153 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #99 in Books > History > Africa > Rwanda

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What to read after you've finished Poisonwood Bible, September 12, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Land of a Thousand Hills: My Life in Rwanda (Hardcover)

I work in an independent book store. For a year I have been communicating with a Rwandan woman, a Tutsi who survived the genocide and now would like to come to America with her 6 year old daughter to study Social Work. I have been reading as much as I can about Africa, Rwanda in particular. I read Philip Gourevitch's "We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families: stories from Rwanda," and Julian Pierce's novel "Speak Rwanda." Of course I devoured Barbara Kingsolver's "Poisonwood Bible." Then I noticed this biography "Land of a Thousand Hills, My Life in Rwanda," by Roz Carr. I was totally captivated by this incredible woman and completely taken in by her story of her life in Africa over the past 50 years. Rosamond Halsey Carr went with her husband to live in the Belgian Congo in 1949, 5 years before Barbara Kingsolver's fictitious family. As time went on, even though her marriage did not last, she chose to stay in this part of the world making it her home. She moved to Rwanda when the white settlers were forced out of Zaire in the early 1960's. Not only did she survive, she is still there, at age 88 running an orphanage for children who lost their families during the genocide. This book describes as nothing else has the reality of 20th century life in the Congo and Rwanda from the perspective of an "ordinary" white settler. I cannot recommend it strongly enough.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent story written with affection and admiration., September 25, 1999

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Land of a Thousand Hills: My Life in Rwanda (Hardcover)

This book is an excellent read. It provides an interesting perspective of the history and culture of Rwanda from the first hand. For those of us who have never been really sure what the Hutu/Tusi conflict was about, this book provides a clear explanation.

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Muzuri Sana, November 1, 1999

By 

Hugh M Frazer (Andrews, NC USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Land of a Thousand Hills: My Life in Rwanda (Hardcover)

High Praise for whom? Is it Madame (Ros), or Ms. Halsey (Ann), or maybe Sembagare, or Kenneth who sparked the flame, or the multiple thousands of lives touched by Ros and who in turn touched her life? Or all of the above? Truth may not be stranger than fiction but it sure is more interesting. As one who lived and worked in Africa for many years, much of it in the Congo, I just want to say this is a marvelous work of art befitting the subject(s). Kwa heri, Madame. God Bless!