Set in Burundi, the “Small Country” in Africa, this book is the debut of Gaël Faye, active as a rapper /slammer (a person who recites their own poems). The protagonist is Gabriel (Gaby), who has a French father and a Rwandan mother, just like the author himself. The story is composed by Gaby, who has grown up and lives in France, in the form of reminiscences of his boyhood years spent in Burundi in the first half of the 1990s. In Burundi, just as in neighboring Rwanda, which experienced genocide at the time, the ethnic conflict between the Hutu and Tutsi intensified and civil war broke out. Gaby was forced to abandon his beloved homeland, where he had a good time with his friends, and to flee to France. It is a work that shows the cruel reality of ethnic conflict through the eyes of a child; at the same time, it can be read as a story depicting the pain of loss experienced by a boy who was dragged into the war and was forced to grow up into a man overnight. In fact, the hero has been deprived of important things such as happy everyday life, family, and innocence one after another. The poignant narrative, nostalgic about the lost homeland and childhood, is as beautiful and deeply moving as if you were reading poetry. In translating it, I tried to preserve the poetic taste of the original text and the vivid brush strokes that directly convey the colors, sounds, and smells of Africa. In addition, I puzzled a great deal over how to reflect the rhythmic originality of the music in the translation.