Gaël Faye, singer, rapper and musician, chose the novel as a medium to evoke his own childhood freeing himself of the horrors he faced far too early in his life.
"Je ne sais pas comment cette histoire a commencé." Faye, G. Petit Pays, p.9.
Small Country is the tragic story of lost innocence and ravaged childhood through the eyes of a child, Gaby, who gradually witnesses his life shattering by human madness and war atrocities.
"Mais au temps d'avant, avant tout ça, avant ce que je vais vous raconter et tout le reste, c'était le bonheur, la vie sans se l'expliquer. L'existance était telle qu'elle était, telle qu'elle avait toujours été et que je voulais qu'elle reste." Faye, G. Petit Pays, p.21.
In 1992, ten-year-old Gabriel lived in Burundi with his French entrepreneur father, his Rwandan mother and his younger sister, Ana, in a comfortable neighbourhood mostly populated by expats. Gabriel spends most of his time with his buddies, a merry bunch busy doing all sorts of mischief until his peaceful daily life and sweet childhood falls apart along with Burundi and Rwanda, two countries suffering from the antagonism between Hutus and Tutsis as well as racial prejudices leading to the horrors of the Rwandan genocide, the death of a million people and the exile of many more refugees. Gabriel witnesses with concern his parents separate as civil war looms, followed by the Rwandan tragedy. This is when everything changes for Gabriel who thought he was just a child but soon he is faced with the discovery of himself as mixed race, Tutsi, and French.
"Plus tard, j'ai appris que c'était une tradition de passer de la musique classique à la radio quand il y avait un coup d'état." Faye, G. Petit Pays, p. 121.
What could be more terrifying than seeing disaster and death through the eyes of a child? Gaël Faye's beautiful writing, and his great talent for portraying scenes, situations, and people, confronts us with, at first, a joyful life, rich in friendships and experiences until peace is disturbed and the civil guerilla warfare begins.
"Nous vivons. Ils sont morts. Maman ne supportait pas cette idée. Elle était moins folle que le monde qui nous entourait. Je ne lui en voulais pas, mais j'avais peur pour Ana. Chaque nuit désormais, Maman lui demandait de parcourir avec elle ses contrées de cauchemars. Je devais sauver Ana, nous sauver." Faye, G. Petit Pays, p. 193:
Despite the difficulty of certain scenes, the story never sinks into pathos as Gaël Faye, the author of Small Country knows how to find the right tone, and wields the pen to perfection to recreate the universe of Gabriel. Small Country is a lucid and poignant look on the moral decay of a country and its people, on the learning of evil and death, on the pain of the country in itself; a forever open wound.
Faye, G. Petit Pays, Paris, Grasset & Fasquelle, 2016.