Jacaranda

Reading and talk with Gaël Faye

His debut novel "Petit Pays" (2017) made him a rising star on the French literary scene. The eponymous tree in his new novel "Jacaranda" hints at ramifications between different generations and families: Milan lives the life of an unremarkable boy in Versailles until the day Claude turns up, a relative of his mother's from Rwanda. When Claude disappears again, Milan can no longer shake off the memory of his little "brother". Why did his mother never mention him, why does Milan only know Rwanda from the evening news? It was not until he was a young man that Milan traveled to Kigali and became friends with Claude again. Journey after journey, Milan begins to uncover the family secret and realizes that Rwanda is still recovering from the genocide against the Tutsi.
Born in Burundi in 1982, Faye grew up as the child of a Rwandan mother and a French father before flowing to France in 1994 as a result of the civil war in Burundi. Today he lives in Kigali as an author, musician and singer. "Jacaranda" was translated into German by Andrea Alvermann and Brigitte Große.

A cooperation between Literaturhaus Stuttgart, Institut français and Hospitalhof Stuttgart