One String Guitar

One-String Guitar, a novel about the Rwandan Genocide, eerily comes to life following the recent tortures and killings in Burundi

One-String Guitar’s central topic of resiliency after the Rwandan Genocide hits center stage with the current killings in Burundi Following President Nkurinziza seeking third bid.

Ten years after surviving the 1994 Rwandan genocide, Francine tries to rebuild her life in Upstate New York where she befriends Elbe, the medical interpreter assigned to her—an adoptee in search of her roots on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota. Against the backdrop of the harrowing 100-day massacres of one million lives in Kigali and the revolution of the Lakota in 1972 on the res, One-String Guitar weaves a narrative of resilience, healing and ultimately, love.

The UN Commission on Human Rights recently announced that 230,000 in Burundi have sought refuge in other countries due to the killings, tortures, rapes and enforced disappearances in the last year.

“When I wrote One-String Guitar, I never thought ethnic cleansing would be taking place again so soon,” said de Vestel the author One-String Guitar.

The novel’s title—a reference to August Wilson’s Seven Guitars in which Hedley plucks a single string instrument to connect with the memory of his mother—urges us all to remain connected to the wisdom of our ancestors in order to avoid repeating the worst chapters of our history.

“But the reality is that there is always a genocide going on somewhere on our planet at any given moment,” de Vestel added.