Great African Reads discussion

This thread is for the Mar/Apr 2025 read of All Your Children, Scattered by Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse.
As this month had an equal amount of interest in the three books I've set up threads for all of them, but not a separate spoiler/non-spoiler thread - just the one :)
Feel free to discuss book editions, availability, expectations, impressions and thoughts!

This book just arrived and I'm looking forward to starting it soon. I'd love to have others join me.

Catherine wrote: "This book just arrived and I'm looking forward to starting it soon. I'd love to have others join me."

Yay, I'm also looking forward to this one and also starting soon/soonish. My current reading was just slowed down while I was on a long weekend excursion in Berlin but I hope to get to this next week or week after...

Dear aAll,
**May I ask a few questions about this seasonal read?**
1. Are there any deadlines?
2. Do we have any goals, such as prizes? My magazine has many literature students and graduates who love challenges.
3. Are any members of this group interested in writing a literary analysis paper on this month’s books? You guys could receive a small monetary reward, along with coverage of the publication fee for the journal that accepts the paper.

I've just started this book. Wow. What a first paragraph. And first few pages. Beautiful, intense writing. I will get into this slowly as I'm in the middle of moving apartments so I'm rather distracted more than usual right now. But this was a nice way to start my day. Really looking forward to this writing after my taste from the first pages.

World wrote: "Dear aAll,
**May I ask a few questions about this seasonal read?**
1. Are there any deadlines?
2. Do we have any goals, such as prizes? My magazine has many literature students and graduates who ..."

#1: It's a March-April book so members are to try to finish it by the end of April. There's no reward or punishment for finishing by that time vs late though.
#2: No prizes or awards, sorry. But click on the "Challenges" link at top right.

This book is beautifully written. It's a book I'm savoring and also, sort of, dreading. I have a friend from Rwanda who survived 1994 and what he told me of his life is horrifying. He did survive and eventually return home to remarry and have a good life.

I finished this one and really loved it. So happy to have discovered this gem. Yes, beautiful, poetic writing and a beautiful family story. It's a short book and around the middle are the most harrowing parts of the story but it is not overwhelming and overall I find it is well-balanced and I did appreciate (view spoiler)[it was an uplifted ending (hide spoiler)]. I always love stories of mixed-race people, I guess because they feel personally validating and tend to have a very nourishing effect on me I think, and I love family sagas. Perhaps it's the intimacy.
I also really enjoyed the themes of silence and music, the way she returned again and again to this saying about the "lid of sorrow", and I found her shifting narrative style interesting. I was impressed how smoothly it worked. It seems like something that could potentially be disruptive to a story but I didn't find that so here.
I also found this very feminist. The women were such endearing, beautiful, complex characters. Stokely was very endearing too. It's really impressive how much this story contains in such a short length.

World wrote: "Dear aAll,
**May I ask a few questions about this seasonal read?**
1. Are there any deadlines?
2. Do we have any goals, such as prizes? My magazine has many literature students and graduates who ..."

There are very good reviewers on this site and likely some very good reviews of this book already written and shared here on Goodreads. Perhaps by having a look at those, you might find solutions for your question #3. Unfortunately this group doesn't have such a lot of activity- you see only two of us joined this discussion- so, the likelihood of finding interest in your request here might be low. Doesn't hurt to ask of course...