Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda is a book by Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire

Roméo Dallaire

Lieutenant-General Roméo Antonius Dallaire, is a Canadian senator, humanitarian, author and retired general...

 of the Canadian Forces

Canadian Forces

The Canadian Forces , officially the Canadian Armed Forces , are the unified armed forces of Canada, as constituted by the National Defence Act, which states: "The Canadian Forces are the armed forces of Her Majesty raised by Canada and consist of one Service called the Canadian Armed Forces."...

, with help from Major Brent Beardsley. It was first published by Random House Canada in September 2003.
The book chronicles the fateful months of Dallaire's tour as Force Commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda

United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda

The United Nations Assistance Mission In Rwanda was a mission instituted by the United Nations to aid the implementation of the Arusha Accords, signed August 4, 1993, which were meant to end the Rwandan Civil War. The mission lasted from October 1993 to March 1996...

 (UNAMIR) in 1993-1994, during which he witnessed the 1994 Rwandan Genocide

Rwandan Genocide

The Rwandan Genocide was the 1994 mass murder of an estimated 800,000 people in the small East African nation of Rwanda. Over the course of approximately 100 days through mid-July, over 500,000 people were killed, according to a Human Rights Watch estimate...

.

This book won the 2003 Shaughnessy Cohen Award for Political Writing, and 2004 Governor General's Award

2004 Governor General's Awards

The nominees for the 2004 Governor General's Awards for Literary Merit were announced on October 26. The children's literature winners were announced on November 15, and the other winners were announced on November 16...

 for nonfiction.

The edition published in French is entitled J'ai serré la main du diable: La faillite de l'humanité au Rwanda.

The award-winning documentary film

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 Shake Hands With the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire

Shake Hands With the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire

Shake Hands With the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire is a documentary film about the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. It was directed by Peter Raymont and inspired by the book Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda , by now-retired Canadian Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire...

(2004) and a 2007 dramatic feature film are inspired by and in part based on the book. Dallaire was consulted in the making of both films.

External links

• "About Shake Hands With the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda." Online posting. Read Magazine (Random House
  Random House
  Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...
  
  of Canada Limited). Catalog entry with summary, excerpt, and author biography; links to more-detailed online Random House catalog entries (trade paperback; hardcover ed.) with excerpts from book reviews.
• Shake Hands With the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda: ISBN 0-679-31171-8