I grabbed myself a copy of this book after seeing it on Anna's feed @never_withouta_book - she then said it was one of her favourites of the year, and I know her recommendations always deliver! This slim but powerful novel is no different.

.

Set in Burundi during the civil war, against the backdrop of the Rwandan genocide, Small Country has no shortage of intense, harrowing scenes. It's told in retrospect, but through the eyes of the narrator when he was 11. Seeing the brutality through the eyes of a child, witnessing their innocence being shattered by the senseless violence surrounding them on all sides... It leaves a mark.

.

Gaël Faye excels at conjuring up a vivid sense of place. At the beginning of the novel, as Gaby recounts his carefree childhood living in an expat neighbourhood of Burundi, I felt transported by his descriptions of the Burundian landscape, the games he played with his friends. As civil war breaks out in Burundi and Rwanda, his mother's home country, is ripped apart by genocide, Faye's powers of description are not diminished, forcing the reader to confront the horrors of the past.  Sarah Ardizzone does a brilliant job of translating this book from the original French.

.

There are similarities between Faye and the protagonist Gaby: both sons of Rwandan mothers and French fathers, both fleeing the war in Burundi as young boys. I was slightly confused as at the beginning, after the prologue (which lays bare the futility of the violence in just a short conversation), there's a chapter written from Gaby's POV as an adult living in France. I expected, then, the novel to maybe go back and forth between past and present, but after this chapter, adult Gaby isn't heard from again.

.

You should definitely try to pick up this prize-winning book if possible!