French-Rwandan singer-songwriter Gaël Faye had great success with his first novel, Small countryawarded numerous prizes and adapted for the cinema. Jacaranda draws on the same autobiographical material and is imbued with his experiences, a formula which works admirably for him in constructing stories and characters that are just as endearing.
Born in France to a French father and a Rwandan mother, his character, Milan, travels to Rwanda for the first time at the age of 16. Until then, all he knew about the country was television coverage of the genocide in 1994. Curious to find out where his mother comes from, he is left wanting more when he has to return to France.
This is how, at the first opportunity, seven years later, he returned to Kigali, despite the opposition of the latter, which had definitively turned the page on its past.
Over more than 20 years and four generations, Milan tells “his Rwanda” with touching candor – the colonial history of the country that he learns in bits and pieces, the still gaping scars of the genocide he witnesses, up to the time of settling scores and reconciliation, but also the lively evenings in Kigali, the new friendships and the unforgettable trips to Lake Kivu.
It is a gripping read, carried by his beautiful pen, that Gaël Faye offers us in short, while touching on the question of origins, belonging and this feeling of being at home in a very intimate way. And we can only hope to see him take this path again in writing, to take us in his footsteps in this vibrant country where he chose to settle a few years ago.
Jacaranda
Grasset
288 pages