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

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 Milan's 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 luminous poetic quality ... unforgettable' Leïla Slimani
'Utterly, captivatingly brilliant' Philippe Sands
'A writer of great promise and grace' Chigozie Obioma
'Gaël Faye's talent is breathtaking' Imbolo Mbue

© Gaël Faye 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026