Goodreads Monday is a weekly meme where we randomly select a book from our Goodreads To Be Read list and share it with the world. It’s hosted by Lauren’s Page Turners, so be sure to link back to her site so that we can all see what everyone plans to read!
Small Country
by Gaël Faye, translated from the French by Sarah Ardizzone
Fiction
192 pages
First published in August, 2016 by Harcourt Press
From Goodreads: A prize-winning bestseller in its native France, a vivid and evocative coming-of-age tale, set against the backdrop of the Rwandan genocide and the civil war in Burundi, of a young boy’s childhood innocence shattered by the brutal tides of history.
In 1992, Gabriel, ten years old, lives in Burundi in a comfortable expatriate neighborhood with his French father, his Rwandan mother and his little sister, Ana. In this joyful idyll, Gabriel spends the better part of his time with his mischievous band of friends, in a tiny cul-de-sac they have turned into their kingdom. But their peaceful existence will suddenly shatter when this small African country is brutally battered by history.
In this magnificent coming-of-age story, Gael Faye describes an end of innocence and drives deep into the heart and mind of a young child caught in the maelstrom of history.
I can’t remember if I saw this book on a blog post or in an article somewhere, but it sounds like an excellent story of a horrific time in history. I wasn’t very old, but I remember seeing reports about the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, though not about the civil war in Burundi. Perhaps I did. I was only in junior high, and the 24-hour news cycle was not the monstrosity that it is today. I can’t imagine that this will be an easy book to read, but it is important that we not forget about the terrible things that have happened in the not-so-distant past.
Traveling in Books 