Books from Rwanda

Say You’re One of Them is a collection of five interconnected-in-spirit stories set in different African countries, exploring the lives of children caught in circumstances far beyond their control. Through the eyes of young narrators, Uwem Akpan portrays the devastating effects of poverty, religious conflict, human trafficking, and political violence on families and communities. Written with emotional intensity and compassion, the collection challenges readers to look beyond headlines and statistics to recognise the individual lives behind Africa’s social and political crises. Rather than reducing its characters to victims, Akpan gives them distinctive voices, relationships, and hopes, creating a powerful portrait of childhood under extreme circumstances.

High in the mountains of Rwanda, an elite Catholic boarding school for girls stands isolated above the Nile, promising its students education, respectability, and protection from the outside world. But beneath its orderly routines, the school reflects the growing ethnic tensions and prejudices shaping Rwandan society in the years before the 1994 genocide. Admission quotas restrict the number of Tutsi students, leaving girls such as Veronica and Virginia vulnerable to discrimination and hostility from their Hutu classmates. As Gloriosa, the daughter of a powerful politician, spreads increasingly dangerous nationalist ideas, friendships fracture and everyday rivalries become entangled with political violence. The school, overseen by Belgian nuns, becomes a microcosm of a society moving toward catastrophe. Through the experiences of its teenage students, Scholastique Mukasonga explores how prejudice is taught, how colonial legacies shape identity, and how violence can take root in ordinary life long before it erupts into tragedy.

Before Rwanda became synonymous with tragedy, its hills held centuries of stories, traditions, and ancestral wisdom. In this evocative collection, Scholastique Mukasonga reaches back into her homeland’s cultural memory, weaving together Rwandan folklore, family recollections, mythology, and the history of colonialism. Rivers carry the echoes of childhood, sacred objects preserve the stories of generations, and the voices of elders bring forgotten worlds back to life. Through tales of kings, village communities, spiritual beliefs, and encounters between African traditions and European influence, Mukasonga creates a rich portrait of a society struggling to preserve its identity amid profound change. The stories move between the intimate and the legendary, revealing how collective memory shapes a people’s understanding of themselves. Both a celebration of Rwanda’s cultural heritage and a meditation on the power of storytelling, this collection seeks to recover a world that history threatened to erase.