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A review by dgrachel
The Tears of a Man Flow Inward: Growing Up in the Civil War in Burundi by Pacifique Irankunda
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
sad
tense
medium-paced
3.5
Pacifique Irankunda was 4 when civil war broke out in Burundi. While he provides some detail about atrocities committed during the 13 year war, those passages feel detached and nearly emotionless. The Tears of a Man Flow Inward reads more like a love letter to his homeland. You can feel his longing for the culture, the storytellers, and the sense of community that was lost or dying even before he was born, due to German and Belgian occupation.
The memoir is sad and hopeful, and it was clearly cathartic for Irankunda who writes, “the first time I wrote a story about a dreadful memory from the war, I actually felt relieved. I could control the experience”. This effort at control, of turning pain into something beautiful, does lend itself to a detached feeling as one is reading, but it’s still a well-written narrative.
The memoir is sad and hopeful, and it was clearly cathartic for Irankunda who writes, “the first time I wrote a story about a dreadful memory from the war, I actually felt relieved. I could control the experience”. This effort at control, of turning pain into something beautiful, does lend itself to a detached feeling as one is reading, but it’s still a well-written narrative.