“Magnificent . . . Mukasonga compresses an epic of the king’s resistance and the grandfather’s dangerous devotion to him, all while crafting in the grandfather’s voice a poignant elegy for a cursed nation (‘I fear that the rituals will be neglected, and then our Rwanda will crumble and perhaps the whole world will crumble’). Each of these stories is a treasure.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
“Murmurs from the Hills sings—of memory, of folklore, of personal and larger histories. At once intimate and expansive, this gorgeous and evocative collection casts a spell through which Rwanda’s past echoes.” —NoViolet Bulawayo
“The stories in Murmurs from the Hills reach deep into pre-colonial Rwandan history. How can distant times inform a nation and a people? Through connections to stories told over centuries, both real and fantastical.”—LitHub‘s Most Anticipated Books of 2026
“This rich tapestry is a world unto itself. Mukasonga’s long engagement with some of the most difficult subjects of our time remains a sustained masterclass in probing subtlety, clear complexity, and literary daring. In Murmurs from the Hills, Mukasonga’s entrancing hybrid storytelling reveals the profoundly entangled web of human activity that makes monstrous intersections of art, culture, and ideology. What’s more, the complexities of human existence that arise in this book prove as haunting, surreal and philosophical and they are enigmatic realms of the unsettling presence of the mundane. These tales, though expressly Rwandan, transcend the abasing debts humans continue to collect from terrible histories anywhere. A tall work from a soaring talent.” —Canisia Lubrin
