A thorny, painful and still raw subject. An additional pressure, that of the second novel, after a first book crowned with success. A successful bet for Gaël Faye. “Jacaranda” is released this Wednesday, August 14 by Grasset. Eight years after “Petit Pays”, winner of the Prix Goncourt des lycéens, adapted into a film, a comic strip, a play, the 42-year-old author and musician returns with a moving, very personal and nuanced story. Its setting: the genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda, which left a million dead between April and July 1994.
We follow Milan, a young Franco-Rwandan, like the author. He goes to the African country for the first time and discovers the history of his mother’s family, who has always kept silent about her personal tragedy. He decides to settle there, meeting many people. The singer of “Lundi méchant”, also co-director of the documentary “Rwanda: le Silence des mots” and secretary of the Collectif des parties civiles pour le Rwanda, now lives in Kigali, where he raises his two daughters. We met him in Paris.