Left to Tell Themes

In Left to Tell, Immaculée Ilibagiza explains how living through the Rwandan genocide—an event so horrifying that one might expect it to lead to a crisis of faith—ultimately strengthened her Catholic faith and relationship with God. Indeed, she credits her miraculous survival to God, and in this way, the book depicts faith as a self-reinforcing cycle, wherein Immaculée’s trust in God produces miracles, which in turn bolster her religious convictions. As Immaculée’s faith grows…

In Left to Tell, Immaculée provides a testament to both the great love and intense prejudice she has experienced in life. One of the most startling lessons of her story is that love and prejudice, despite being opposing forces, often coexist alongside one another. Love can turn into prejudice with disturbing speed, yet her story shows that the opposite is also true. While Immaculée acknowledges the frightening and destructive power of prejudice, she believes…

Immaculée’s story shows how good and evil exist side-by-side, often in a remarkably extreme fashion. Immaculée’s family—and particularly her parents—are a model of kindness and justice. Her father, Leonard, is a pillar of the community who is always helping others, and her mother, Rose, is similarly committed to helping those in need. Yet alongside this immense goodness lies the evil of prejudice, hatred, and violence—an evil which eventually ends up killing Leonard…

In Immaculée’s family, education is extremely important. Both her parents are teachers and encourage their children to be extremely diligent in their studies, providing the children with extra instruction and supervision on their homework. Immaculée is an ambitious, intelligent, and disciplined young woman, and she excels academically. This opens up opportunities for her to attend the very best educational institutions in Rwanda, experience independence at a young age, and lay the foundations for an…