Book World: Naomi Benaron’s ‘Running the Rift’

I remember hearing a joke on French radio in 1994. The rock singer Johnny Hallyday — not the brightest spark — was being sent up by a couple of comics. The one playing Johnny was asked what he thought of the conflict between the Hutus and the Tutsis. He replied that he liked U2’s latest album and he thought Dustin Hoffman was very good in the movie — so what was there to get upset about? Loud laughter. It was the sort of ghoulish playground joke that is made around the world as a knee-jerk response to some catastrophe, celebrity death or hideous accident, but it must have been aired before the full horror of the Rwandan genocide of 1994 was revealed. As the news began to emerge about what really had happened in the small central African country from April to July, it became clear that the world had witnessed another shocking example of man’s easy inhumanity to man. All jokes died on people’s lips.

Most of us are familiar with the so-called Chinese curse: “May you live in interesting times.” I hadn’t realized until recently that there was a follow-up to it that goes (I paraphrase): “And may you come to the attention of powerful people.” These bland phrases resonated in my mind as I read Naomi Benaron’s audacious and compelling first novel, “Running the Rift.” It’s the story of a young man’s coming of age set against the background of the Rwandan genocide of 1994, during which the overwhelmingly dominant ethnic group in Rwanda, the Hutus, set out to exterminate the minority, the Tutsis. It’s impossible to count the number of Tutsi deaths that took place over the course of the rampage — there was no documentation, unlike with the Nazi or the Khmer Rouge genocides — but the final figure that most authorities agree on is somewhere around 800,000.

(Algonquin Books) - “Running the Rift: A Novel” by Naomi Benaron.

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In Rwanda, it’s not just the butcher’s bill that so disturbs. Other factors chill the blood. This was a genocide of neighbor against neighbor, a homespun night of the long knives where, if you were a Tutsi, the local postman or taxi driver or farmer was your merciless enemy. Moreover, it was primitively low-tech, the weapon of choice being the machete or the panga. Add to this the introduction of tactical, organized war-rape by the Hutu militias; then consider the Western world’s complacency or ignorance — Rwanda, where’s that? — then analyze the sins of omission of the French and the United Nations, and the laggardly response from African neighbors to the slaughter, and one begins to understand the mark of shame that hangs over this tiny, landlocked African country, a shame in which the world participates to this day.

It’s a brave writer, then, who takes a subject as historically complex and gravid with emotion as this one as the background to her first novel, and Benaron has to be loudly applauded for her bravura and heartfelt attempt to encapsulate and document this corner of 20th-century bestiality through her story of a young man’s teenage and early adult years. Her protagonist, Jean Patrick Nkuba, is a Tutsi who shows real promise as an athlete. He’s taken up by a Hutu athletics coach, whom he comes to respect and revere, and trained to compete for Rwanda in the 800 meters on the international stage. His dream is to run in the Olympics.

Benaron’s novel covers approximately 10 years, from 1984 to the genocide, with a coda covering the aftermath. On the surface, it is an authentic and richly textured portrait of African life. Jean Patrick comes from a rural family; his father is a civil servant. A clever boy, he gets into a good school, and once his running talent has been spotted, an avenue of bright tomorrows seems assured for him. Slowly but surely, however, we become aware of dark undercurrents swirling beneath Rwandan society. Hutu hatred of the one-time Tutsi elite grows overt; persecution and discrimination become more violent and common. Because we know the eventual ghastly outcome, these initial acts of brutality and terroristic bullying are genuinely disturbing. Meanwhile, Jean Patrick tries to proceed with his life. He meets and falls in love with a beautiful Hutu girl whose father is an opposition politician. He’s also befriended by an American academic working at the university. His athletic career progresses, though it has to be said that Benaron favors us with too many passages of training and racing. Eventually the volcano erupts, and Rwanda’s terrifying nightmare begins.

Benaron does not spare us any of the abominations of the genocide, but her denouement is surprisingly redemptive — not to say romantic. Perhaps this is a fair reflection of the current situation in Rwanda, where life is hard but, astonishingly, some sort of uneasy reconciliation has been achieved. The most enthusiastic killers who could be caught have been tried and imprisoned, and Hutu and Tutsi seem to be managing to live alongside each other almost as if the events of 1994 were something that happened a century ago. Let’s hope the country is able to enjoy some uninteresting times.

Boyd’s new novel, “Waiting for Sunrise,” will be published in April.

Naomi Benaron will be at Politics and Prose on Thurs., Feb. 2, at 7 p.m. For more information, call 202-364-1919.

RUNNING THE RIFT

By Naomi Benaron

Algonquin. 365 pp. $24.95