Question

What is Rusesabagina’s purpose in writing his book? What is the significance of the book’s title, An Ordinary Man? Be sure to review your reading notes and cite text evidence in your response

Answer 1

David Smith on An Ordinary Man: The True Story Behind Hotel ... This is a book about humanity at its very worst and how an ordinary man can ... cinemagoers were not shown the importance of his upbringing in a ... He notes how, in the hotel built for only 300 people, Hutu and Tutsi ... Books · The Observer.

Answer 2

The purpose of Rusesabagina in writing this book is to tell us the story of how he was able to save over a thousand people from sure death during the Rwandan genocide. We learn that Rusesabagina was a hotel manager who hid many Tutsi as well as Hutu people in his hotel in order to save their lives.

The significance of the book title is the fact that Rusesabagina was an ordinary man. He was not a particularly powerful or rich person. Yet, he was able to make such incredibly heroic decisions. Throughout the book, he keeps reminding us of this, and of how he constantly believed his plan was going to fail. He explains:

"I was not particularly eloquent in these conversations.... I still don't understand why those men in the militias didn't just put a bullet in my head and execute every last person in the rooms upstairs but they didn't."