Gaël Faye was born in 1982 in Burundi to a French father and Rwandan mother. In 1995, after the outbreak of the civil war and the Rwandan genocide, the family moved to France. An author, songwriter and hip-hop artist, he released his first solo album, Pili Pili sur un croissant au beurre, in 2013.


His first novel, Small Country, was a bestseller in France, and has been awarded numerous literary prizes, among them the Prix Goncourt des Lycéens, and is being published in thirty countries worldwide. His second novel, Jacaranda, won the Prix Renaudot and Choix Goncourt in France.

Sarah Ardizzone is an award-winning translator of French-speaking voices. Her collaborations with Gaël Faye include Small Country (Petit Pays), producing a bilingual musical performance version for the Edinburgh International Book Festival and translating lyrics for Gaël's platinum album Lundi Méchant. To research Jacaranda, she travelled across Rwanda with Gaël and the creators of the bande dessinée adaptations of his novels, Marzena Sowa and Sylvain Savoia. She was named Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2022, and made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2024.