
A Voice in the Darkness
Memoir of a Rwandan Genocide Survivor
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed

Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $24.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Sara Van Beckum
About this listen
In 1994, Jeanne Celestine, a young Rwandan schoolgirl, was living a quiet life in the countryside when the death of Rwanda’s president provoked a 100-day extermination of over one million ethnic Tutsis. She survived by hiding from violent militiamen all the while caring for her three-year-old twin sisters, Teddy and Teta.
This inspirational narrative reveals the mind of an innocent child, who, in the face of humanity’s most hideous act, not only managed to preserve her life and the lives of her sisters, but also to restore her voice in the wake of its immense darkness.
©2018, 2020, 2021 Jeanne Celestine Lakin (P)2021 Jeanne Celestine LakinListeners also enjoyed...
-
The Lynching
- The Epic Courtroom Battle That Brought Down the Klan
- By: Laurence Leamer
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a Friday night in March 1981, Henry Hays and James Knowles scoured the streets of Mobile in their car, hunting for a black man. The young men were members of Klavern 900 of the United Klans of America. They were seeking to retaliate after a largely black jury could not reach a verdict in a trial involving a black man accused of the murder of a white man. The two Klansmen found 19-year-old Michael Donald walking home alone.
-
-
Very Readable
- By Jean on 06-10-16
By: Laurence Leamer
-
Left to Tell
- Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust
- By: Immaculée Ilibagiza
- Narrated by: Immaculée Ilibagiza
- Length: 5 hrs and 12 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1994, Immaculee Ilibagiza's world was ripped apart when her native country of Rwanda descended into a bloody genocide. Her family was brutally murdered during a killing spree that lasted three months and claimed the lives of nearly a million Rwandans. Miraculously, Immaculee survived the slaughter.
-
-
What a triumphant spirit
- By Kim on 01-22-07
-
We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families
- Stories from Rwanda
- By: Philip Gourevitch
- Narrated by: Philip Gourevitch
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An unforgettable firsthand account of a people's response to genocide and what it tells us about humanity. This remarkable audiobook chronicles what has happened in Rwanda and neighboring states since 1994, when the Rwandan government called on everyone in the Hutu majority to murder everyone in the Tutsi minority.
-
-
Things you'd never imagine
- By LEE on 12-27-19
-
Brothers of the Gun
- A Memoir of the Syrian War
- By: Marwan Hisham, Molly Crabapple
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2011, Marwan Hisham and his two friends - fellow working-class college students Nael and Tareq - joined the first protests of the Arab Spring in Syria, in response to a recent massacre. Arm in arm they marched, poured Coca-Cola into one another’s eyes to blunt the effects of tear gas, ran from the security forces, and cursed the country’s president, Bashar al-Assad. It was ecstasy. A long-bottled revolution was finally erupting, and freedom from a brutal dictator seemed, at last, imminent.
-
-
Perfect with Peter Ganim
- By Anonymous User on 06-14-24
By: Marwan Hisham, and others
-
First They Killed My Father
- A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers
- By: Loung Ung
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of seven children of a high-ranking government official, Loung Ung lived a privileged life in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh until the age of five. Then, in April 1975, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge army stormed into the city, forcing Ung's family to flee and, eventually, to disperse. Loung was trained as a child soldier in a work camp for orphans, her siblings were sent to labor camps, and those who survived the horrors would not be reunited until the Khmer Rouge was destroyed.
-
-
Brutal, Heartbreaking
- By Gillian on 01-27-15
By: Loung Ung
-
Hiding in the Light
- Why I Risked Everything to Leave Islam and Follow Jesus
- By: Rifqa Bary
- Narrated by: Rifqa Bary
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rifqa Bary grew up in a devout Muslim home, obediently following her parents' orders to practice the rituals of Islam. But God was calling her to freedom and love. He was calling her to true faith. He was calling her to give up everything.
-
-
Excellent!
- By Enrique Mata III on 05-24-15
By: Rifqa Bary
-
The Lynching
- The Epic Courtroom Battle That Brought Down the Klan
- By: Laurence Leamer
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a Friday night in March 1981, Henry Hays and James Knowles scoured the streets of Mobile in their car, hunting for a black man. The young men were members of Klavern 900 of the United Klans of America. They were seeking to retaliate after a largely black jury could not reach a verdict in a trial involving a black man accused of the murder of a white man. The two Klansmen found 19-year-old Michael Donald walking home alone.
-
-
Very Readable
- By Jean on 06-10-16
By: Laurence Leamer
-
Left to Tell
- Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust
- By: Immaculée Ilibagiza
- Narrated by: Immaculée Ilibagiza
- Length: 5 hrs and 12 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1994, Immaculee Ilibagiza's world was ripped apart when her native country of Rwanda descended into a bloody genocide. Her family was brutally murdered during a killing spree that lasted three months and claimed the lives of nearly a million Rwandans. Miraculously, Immaculee survived the slaughter.
-
-
What a triumphant spirit
- By Kim on 01-22-07
-
We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families
- Stories from Rwanda
- By: Philip Gourevitch
- Narrated by: Philip Gourevitch
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An unforgettable firsthand account of a people's response to genocide and what it tells us about humanity. This remarkable audiobook chronicles what has happened in Rwanda and neighboring states since 1994, when the Rwandan government called on everyone in the Hutu majority to murder everyone in the Tutsi minority.
-
-
Things you'd never imagine
- By LEE on 12-27-19
-
Brothers of the Gun
- A Memoir of the Syrian War
- By: Marwan Hisham, Molly Crabapple
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2011, Marwan Hisham and his two friends - fellow working-class college students Nael and Tareq - joined the first protests of the Arab Spring in Syria, in response to a recent massacre. Arm in arm they marched, poured Coca-Cola into one another’s eyes to blunt the effects of tear gas, ran from the security forces, and cursed the country’s president, Bashar al-Assad. It was ecstasy. A long-bottled revolution was finally erupting, and freedom from a brutal dictator seemed, at last, imminent.
-
-
Perfect with Peter Ganim
- By Anonymous User on 06-14-24
By: Marwan Hisham, and others
-
First They Killed My Father
- A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers
- By: Loung Ung
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of seven children of a high-ranking government official, Loung Ung lived a privileged life in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh until the age of five. Then, in April 1975, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge army stormed into the city, forcing Ung's family to flee and, eventually, to disperse. Loung was trained as a child soldier in a work camp for orphans, her siblings were sent to labor camps, and those who survived the horrors would not be reunited until the Khmer Rouge was destroyed.
-
-
Brutal, Heartbreaking
- By Gillian on 01-27-15
By: Loung Ung
-
Hiding in the Light
- Why I Risked Everything to Leave Islam and Follow Jesus
- By: Rifqa Bary
- Narrated by: Rifqa Bary
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rifqa Bary grew up in a devout Muslim home, obediently following her parents' orders to practice the rituals of Islam. But God was calling her to freedom and love. He was calling her to true faith. He was calling her to give up everything.
-
-
Excellent!
- By Enrique Mata III on 05-24-15
By: Rifqa Bary
-
Ordinary Men
- Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland
- By: Christopher R. Browning
- Narrated by: Kevin Gallagher
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ordinary Men is the true story of Reserve Police Battalion 101 of the German Order Police, which was responsible for mass shootings as well as round-ups of Jewish people for deportation to Nazi death camps in Poland in 1942. Browning argues that most of the men of RPB 101 were not fanatical Nazis but, rather, ordinary middle-aged, working-class men who committed these atrocities out of a mixture of motives, including the group dynamics of conformity, deference to authority, role adaptation, and the altering of moral norms to justify their actions.
-
-
could've done without the afterword...
- By Andrew lester on 06-07-20
-
The Color of Water
- A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother
- By: James McBride
- Narrated by: JD Jackson, Susan Denaker
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Who is Ruth McBride Jordan? A self-declared "light-skinned" woman evasive about her ethnicity, yet steadfast in her love for her 12 Black children. James McBride, journalist, musician, and son, explores his mother's past, as well as his own upbringing and heritage, in a poignant and powerful debut, The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother.
-
-
Awesome
- By Michael on 05-30-17
By: James McBride
-
The Tattooist of Auschwitz
- A Novel
- By: Heather Morris
- Narrated by: Richard Armitage
- Length: 7 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In April 1942, Lale Sokolov, a Slovakian Jew, is forcibly transported to the concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau. When his captors discover that he speaks several languages, he is put to work as a Tätowierer (German for tattooist), tasked with permanently marking his fellow prisoners. Imprisoned for more than two and a half years, Lale witnesses horrific atrocities and barbarism - but also incredible acts of bravery and compassion. Risking his own life, he uses his position to exchange jewels and money from murdered Jews for food to keep his fellow prisoners alive.
-
-
A hopeful perspective on a harrowing time
- By melyssa57 (A Page Before Bedtime dot com) on 10-10-18
By: Heather Morris
-
The Anthropocene Reviewed
- Essays on a Human-Centered Planet
- By: John Green
- Narrated by: John Green
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Anthropocene is the current geologic age, in which humans have profoundly reshaped the planet and its biodiversity. In this remarkable symphony of essays adapted and expanded from his groundbreaking podcast, best-selling author John Green reviews different facets of the human-centered planet on a five-star scale - from the QWERTY keyboard and sunsets to Canada geese and Penguins of Madagascar.
-
-
unexpected
- By E. Collins on 05-18-21
By: John Green
-
Kaffir Boy
- The True Story of a Black Youth’s Coming of Age in Apartheid South Africa
- By: Mark Mathabane
- Narrated by: Mark Mathabane
- Length: 18 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mark Mathabane was weaned on devastating poverty and schooled in the cruel streets of South Africa’s most desperate ghetto, where bloody gang wars and midnight police raids were his rites of passage. Like every other child born in the hopelessness of apartheid, he learned to measure his life in days, not years. Yet Mark Mathabane, armed only with the courage of his family and a hard-won education, raised himself up from the squalor and humiliation to win a scholarship to an American university.
-
-
Tragic yet we'll written
- By ARM on 10-07-16
By: Mark Mathabane
-
All My Knotted-Up Life
- A Memoir
- By: Beth Moore
- Narrated by: Beth Moore
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
All My Knotted-Up Life is a beautifully crafted portrait of resilience and survival, a poignant reminder of God’s enduring faithfulness, and proof positive that if we ever truly took the time to hear people’s full stories . . . we’d all walk around slack-jawed.
-
-
Finished in one day
- By nedmac mama on 02-22-23
By: Beth Moore
-
God's Double Agent
- The True Story of a Chinese Christian's Fight for Freedom
- By: Bob Fu, Nancy French
- Narrated by: Hayden Lee
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
God’s people are hiding in plain sightTens of millions of Christians live in China today, leading double lives to hide from a government that relentlessly persecutes them. By day, Bob Fu was a teacher in a communist school; by night, he was a preacher in an underground house church network. This edge-of-your-seat book tells the true story of Fu’s conversion to Christianity, his arrest and imprisonment for starting an illegal house church, his harrowing escape, and his subsequent rise to prominence in the United States as an advocate for his oppressed brethren.
-
-
a great book, very informative.
- By Charles on 09-21-15
By: Bob Fu, and others
-
A Long Way Gone
- Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
- By: Ishmael Beah
- Narrated by: Ishmael Beah
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is how wars are fought now by children, hopped up on drugs, and wielding AK-47s. In the more than fifty violent conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated that there are some 300,000 child soldiers. Ishmael Beah used to be one of them. How does one become a killer? How does one stop? Child soldiers have been profiled by journalists, and novelists have struggled to imagine their lives. But it is rare to find a first-person account from someone who endured this hell and survived.
-
-
Author's voice
- By B. Bunt on 11-01-13
By: Ishmael Beah
-
The Nightingale
- By: Kristin Hannah
- Narrated by: Polly Stone
- Length: 17 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With courage, grace, and powerful insight, bestselling author Kristin Hannah captures the epic panorama of World War II and illuminates an intimate part of history seldom seen: the women's war. The Nightingale tells the stories of two sisters, separated by years and experience, by ideals, passion and circumstance, each embarking on her own dangerous path toward survival, love, and freedom in German-occupied, war-torn France—a heartbreakingly beautiful novel that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the durability of women. It is a novel for everyone, a novel for a lifetime.
-
-
HEARTBREAKINGLY POIGNANT AND INCREDIBLY BEAUTIFUL
- By PatrioticMimi on 02-17-15
By: Kristin Hannah
-
The Choice
- Escaping the Past and Embracing the Possible
- By: Dr. Edith Eva Eger
- Narrated by: Tovah Feldshuh
- Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A powerful, moving memoir - and a practical guide to healing - written by Dr. Edith Eva Eger, an eminent psychologist whose own experiences as a Holocaust survivor help her treat patients and allow them to escape the prisons of their own minds. The Choice weaves Eger's personal story with case studies from her work as a psychologist. Her patients and their stories illustrate different phases of healing and show how people can choose to escape the prisons they construct in their minds and find freedom, regardless of circumstance.
-
-
One Of The Most Powerful Books I Have Read in My Lifetime!
- By R. F. Wood on 05-11-18
-
The Hiding Place
- By: Corrie ten Boom, Elizabeth Sherrill, John Sherrill
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At one time, Corrie ten Boom would have laughed at the idea that she had a story to tell. For the first 50 years of her life, nothing out of the ordinary ever happened to her. She was a spinster watchmaker living contentedly with her sister and their elderly father in the tiny house over their shop in Haarlem. Their uneventful days, as regulated as their own watches, revolved around their abiding love for one another. But with the Nazi invasion and occupation of Holland, everything changed....
-
-
Inspiring
- By Sara on 03-03-14
By: Corrie ten Boom, and others
-
American Dirt
- A Novel
- By: Jeanine Cummins
- Narrated by: Yareli Arizmendi
- Length: 16 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lydia Quixano Pérez lives in the Mexican city of Acapulco. She runs a bookstore. She has a son, Luca, the love of her life, and a wonderful husband who is a journalist. And while there are cracks beginning to show in Acapulco because of the drug cartels, her life is, by and large, fairly comfortable. When Lydia’s husband’s tell-all profile of Javier, the jefe of the newest drug cartel that has gruesomely taken over the city, is published, none of their lives will ever be the same.
-
-
Completely unrealistic
- By Marlene L Marquez on 02-12-20
By: Jeanine Cummins
Well worth reading
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Jeanne wrote her story with incredible details and gave a voice to those who suffered. Jeanne was able to answer some of my questions I had regarding Rwanda’s history, as well as the aftermath of the Genocide against Tutsi.
The narrator did a fantastic job at pronouncing words that were in the author’s native language: Kinyarwanda.
With Jeanne’s writing and Sara’s narration, I felt like I was experiencing this heartbreaking tragedy. Of course, I’ll never be able to fully grasp what Jeanne went through. I appreciate her determination for a better life and retaining a strong relationship with God.
Murakoze Jeanne for opening up your heart and sharing your story.
Inspiration after Devastation
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Couldn’t put it down
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Couldn’t put it down!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Powerful story
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I highly recommend this memoir of the Rwandan genocide, both because it's a story the world should not forget, and because Jeanne Lakin's strength of character and human dignity were not broken under circumstances that few would survive, never mind enough to build a new life.
Rising out of horror
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
My heart!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I'm in awe!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Incredible and Inspiring
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Absolutely powerful!!!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.