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I‘ve seldom read a book that touched and moved me as much as Small Country. Told from the perspective of a young boy, it brings to life a bit of African history which is so terrible it once made international front page news but now seems quite forgotten: the genocide of the Tutsi in Burundi and Rwanda. Small Country talks of broken dreams, a stolen childhood, masses of innocents lives taken in the most brutal ways and a hatred which is profound and extremely hard to understand. This book is one of the best debut novels I‘ve read in years. The language is beautiful with exactly the right words. The letters Gaby writes to his French penpal and to his dead cousin are both the saddest and most perfect ones imaginable. At the beginning of the book Gaby asks his father what distinguishes Tutsi and Hutu but his father can‘t really tell him. Gaby doesn‘t really understand the difference and neither did I. I would have liked to learn a bit more about the two ethnic groups and wish the author had explained it in a few sentences. This would have made understanding some of the political developments and motivations easier.
Sep 23, 2022
I‘ve seldom read a book that touched and moved me as much as Small Country. Told from the perspective of a young boy, it brings to life a bit of African history which is so terrible it once made international front page news but now seems quite forgotten: the genocide of the Tutsi in Burundi and Rwanda. Small Country talks of broken dreams, a stolen childhood, masses of innocents lives taken in the most brutal ways and a hatred which is profound and extremely hard to understand. This book is one of the best debut novels I‘ve read in years. The language is beautiful with exactly the right words. The letters Gaby writes to his French penpal and to his dead cousin are both the saddest and most perfect ones imaginable. At the beginning of the book Gaby asks his father what distinguishes Tutsi and Hutu but his father can‘t really tell him. Gaby doesn‘t really understand the difference and neither did I. I would have liked to learn a bit more about the two ethnic groups and wish the author had explained it in a few sentences. This would have made understanding some of the political developments and motivations easier.
Sep 23, 2022
