Running the Rift by Naomi Benaron

This is expert writing. There is an underlining tension throughout which keeps you on tenterhooks because the danger is ever-present.

The story is of Jean Patrick, a Rwandan runner. At the beginning it is 1984 and he is a young boy. His teacher father wishes him and his brothers and sisters goodbye before going on a journey, where he inevitably dies, in a car crash. Soon after the tensions between the Rwandan ethnic-groups, Hutu and oppressed Tutsi, of which Jean Patrick belongs, are introduced as he grows up with stones and insults being thrown his way. Other times see his big brother Roger and him having running races.

Then a marathon runner who represented Rwanda at the Olympics visits his school and Jean Patrick shows promise so that the marathon runner tells him that "one day you will need to run as much as you need to breathe". These words prove to be prophetic as the deteriorating political picture takes shape around Jean Patrick who prefers to be oblivious to it as he concentrates on his running and schooling.

And he does very well making University in 1993 where he meets Bea, meaning blessed one, who he falls in love with. In the running he gets Olympic qualifying times in the 800m, leading to the nickname "Mr. Olympics". Through his running he even gets to meet the Rwandan president Habyarimana.

But tensions are brewing all around. The media are spewing hate speech. Assassinations are happening to political leaders. Preparations are being made. "In every commune, on every level - teachers, sector leaders, burgomasters - lists of Tutsis and opposition Hutu have been collected. It's a plan for total annihilation."

Then the president is killed and the annihilation plans are quickly put in place. The UN troops flee as the international community turns its back leaving Rwanda to deal with its problems on its own. The carefully orchestrated killings of Tutsi happen. Names of people to kill are read out over the airwaves. "All Tutsi will perish. They will disappear from the earth." Jean Patrick hears about the deaths of his best friend and others over the radio, and keeps listening out for news of his family. The radio keeps the killing fever to boiling point.

Then as the Hutu Power led troops close in Jean Patrick has no choice but to run; to run through the woods and marshes full of dead bodies, past the people being killed; to run alongside the orphans and the mothers carrying their dead babies. "One day you will need to run as much as you need to breathe." That day is now.

Brilliant book that masterfully brings alive through fiction what happened in Rwanda in 1994.

(I got this book through Amazon Vine UK. It is listed HERE.)