The Tears of a Man Flow Inward: Growing Up in the Civil War in Burundi

In this elegant debut, Irankunda recounts how he survived the 13-year civil war that defined his childhood. Irankunda was four in 1993 when he and his family, members of the Tutsi minority, were swept up in the ethnic war that dominated Burundi following the assassination of the nation’s Hutu president. Combining scholarly research, oral history, and personal anecdote, Irankunda juxtaposes the horrors he witnessed as war eradicated his country’s “storytelling” culture with rich tales of its past traditions—when cows were treated like “kings,” and “women followed the cattle, balancing tall baskets of sorghum flour on their heads.” With the help of an older sibling and the encouragement of his mother, who lived in a “fairly big” house until it was raided and destroyed by rebels, he moved to the United States as a teenager to continue his education under the mentorship of Pulitzer Prize–winning author Tracy Kidder. Still, Irankunda recalls that throughout his studies, he longed for a peaceful future for Burundi. “When a country has descended into great darkness, as Burundi has since its civil war,” he writes, “how do you find the light, how do you bring it back?” With prose that powerfully works as an act of “collective memory,” he achieves that by offering a stunning tribute to his land and its people. The result is an intelligent and immensely moving story of resilience. (Mar.)