Set in Burundi and Rwanda from 1993 onwards, the novel is narrated by ten-year-old Gaby, who lives with his French father and Rwandan mother in an "impasse" in a comfortable district of Bujumbura. Gabriel's sheltered upbringing leaves him oblivious to the increasing tensions between the Hutu majority and the Tutsi minority (to which he, through his mother, belongs). As neighbouring Rwanda faces the outbreak of civil war and genocide, which spill over into Burundi, the innocence of Gaby and his group of friends is brutally shattered.