Running the Rift by Naomi Beneron

When you read the word “Rwanda” and the year 1996 in the jacket summary of a book, you just know that the book will be hard going.  The war and genocide in that conflicted country is too brutal and too hopeless a subject to navigate in a novel that you read for fun.  I wasn’t sure what I was getting into and not completely sure if I wanted to tackle this emotional rollercoaster.  I decided to give it 25 pages and see if I was up for it.  Boy was I glad that I did. 

Running the Rift is the story of Jean Patrick Nkuba, a young boy from the country near Lake Kiva whose dream is to compete for Rwanda in the Summer Olympics.   He is a gifted runner and aspires to run the 800 on the world stage.  Unfortunately, he is of Tutsi descent and struggles with discrimination that he and his family endure at the hands of an oppressive Hutu government.  Jean Patrick is extremely gifted academically which gives him the leg up he needs to make it into the schools with the right track coaches.  During the killing, he finds himself running for his life instead of for glory. 

With the impending Summer Olympics, this story resonates.  We Americans can’t understand the barriers that some of the athletes from small African countries have to jump in order to make it to that one day of competition at the Olympics.  Beneron tells a wonderful story of Jean Patrick’s rise in his sport and his politically exploited fame as he is held by the government as the Tutsi hope for Rwanda.  We understand the conflict that Jean Patrick feels as he is given a Hutu ID card that will help him travel about the country and his hopeful naivety that Rwandans could possibly coexist and let him run without issue. 

At the core of this story is a young man who loves his family, his home and his girlfriend and who just wants to move forward in his life.  This is what saves the book from becoming one that is just too hard to read.  We fall in love with Jean Patrick and his beloved family, friends and country.  Beneron writes with the lyrical imagery of Africa and describes it in such a way that we find ourselves loving the landscape and the people as much as Jean Patrick does.  Even through the difficult parts (and there are definitely difficult parts!) we find ourselves rooting for Jean Patrick and trying hard to understand an incomprehensible war. 

This book was nominated won the Bellwether Prize for Fiction, a prize given by Barbara Kingsolver to books that address issues of social justice.  It is a worthy recipient. This summer when we are watching the track and field events in London, I, for one, will have a new-found respect for those young runners from small, and often war torn African countries.  My eyes have been opened.  But isn’t that what books are supposed to do?