I'm Not Leaving

Wilkens, Carl

I'm Not Leaving – Rwanda through the eyes of the only American to remain in the country throughout the 1994 genocide.

Wilkens writes: It must have been about the 2nd week of the genocide that I got the idea of talking on a cassette recorder, to record what was happening around me. I honestly did not know if I was going to survive this dark time, and if I didn't survive I wanted to leave something for my wife and our three children. 

I always scribbled our home address in Spokane, Washington on each tape in the hope that if something did happen to me and our home here was looted, some kind person might find these tapes and send them to their intended destination.  The vast majority of this book is based on those tapes, about eight hours of recordings.