Gaël Faye

French-Rwandan Gaël Faye is an author, composer and rap artist. He was born in 1982 in Burundi, and has a Rwandan mother and French father an in 1995, after the outbreak of the civil war and the Rwandan genocide, the family moved to France. Gaël studied finance and worked for an investment fund before leaving London to embark on a career of writing and music.

Small Country is Faye’s first novel. A bestseller in France, it won the Prix Goncourt des Lycéens 2016, and has been translated into English for the first time. In Small Country, Gabriel is ten years old and lives in Burundi’s comfortable expat neighbourhood with his father, his mother and his little sister Ana. Despite the euphoria of the country's first democratic election, there are hints of trouble ahead. Soon Burundi, and neighbouring Rwanda, are hit by war and genocide.

Gaël Faye describes an end of innocence and dives deep into the torments and questions of a child caught in the maelstrom of history. A tale of redemption and a vivid depiction of the pain of losing your home country.