Jacaranda: A Novel

A young man journeys from Paris to Rwanda to discover the truth about his family’s past in this bestselling, prize-winning novel from internationally renowned Rwandan-French novelist and hip-hop artist Gaël Faye.

“There is magic in Gaël Faye’s writing . . . This book is unforgettable.” —Leïla Slimani, internationally bestselling author of The Perfect Nanny

“Gaël Faye’s talent is breathtaking.” —Imbolo Mbue, author of Behold the Dreamers

Milan—the twelve-year-old son of a French father and a Rwandan mother—blames flunking his exams on the emotional toll of the genocide in his mother’s homeland. In truth, his mother never talks about Rwanda; the violence is an abstraction that only reaches their French suburb through television broadcasts. That is, until Milan meets Claude, a small boy with a bandaged head whom Milan’s mother introduces as a cousin who has come to France seeking medical treatment. Milan embraces him as the brother he’s always wanted—until, one day, Claude is sent back to Rwanda without warning, leaving him heartbroken and confused.

Four years later, the boys reunite as teenagers when Milan visits Rwanda for the first time with his mother in the wake of her divorce and discovers a more fractured and vibrant community than he could have imagined. But the trip raises more questions for him than it answers—about family, the war, and its aftershocks. Over the course of many years, Milan will return to Rwanda again and again, compelled to unearth the secrets that have taken root in the shadows of long silences, confront the past, and imagine a new future.

Partly inspired by acclaimed author Gaël Faye’s own relationship with Rwanda and its history, Jacaranda is a rich and deeply felt portrait of a man seeking to understand his family and his nation as it heals from the unthinkable.