Mukasonga’s debut novel uses the titular girls boarding school, perched on a ridge near the source of the Nile, as a lens through which to examine the Hutu and Tutsi conflict in Rwanda. Mainly setting her story 15 years before the 1994 genocide, Mukasonga, through the girls’ daily experiences at the school, sheds light on the growing political, ethnic, and social hostility of a country moving toward disaster.”

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