Jacaranda

A young man journeys from Paris to Rwanda to discover the truth about his mother’s past and the country of her birth, from bestselling and prize-winning Rwandan-French novelist and hip-hop artist Gaël Faye

‘A luminous poetic quality … unforgettable’ Leïla Slimani
‘Utterly, captivatingly brilliant’ Philippe Sands

Milan – the twelve-year-old son of a French father and a Rwandan mother – blames flunking his exams on the emotional trauma of the genocide in his mother’s homeland. It’s a convenient excuse: growing up outside Paris in the 1990s, the violence is an abstraction that only reaches him through distant television broadcasts.

That is, until Milan’s mother introduces him to Claude, a young cousin with a bandaged head who has come to France seeking medical treatment. Thrilled to have a new playmate, Milan treats Claude as a brother until one day, he is sent back to Rwanda as quickly as he came.

Four years later, Milan travels for the first time to Rwanda, encountering a beguiling country and family members he never knew existed, and reuniting with Claude. But the trip raises more questions than it answers – about Milans family history, the war and its aftershocks.

Over the course of many years, Milan returns to Rwanda again and again, compelled to confront the past and imagine a new kind of future. Jacaranda is a deeply felt portrait of a man seeking to understand his family and his nation.

‘A writer of great promise and grace’ Chigozie Obioma
‘Gaël Faye’s talent is breathtaking’ Imbolo Mbue