Scholastique Mukasonga drops us into an elite Catholic boarding school for young women perched on the edge of the Nile.

Parents send their daughters to Our Lady of the Nile to be molded into respectable citizens and to escape the dangers of the outside world. Fifteen years prior to the 1994 Rwandan genocide, we watch as these girls try on their parents’ preconceptions and attitudes, transforming the lycée into a microcosm of the country’s mounting racial tensions and violence.

In the midst of the interminable rainy season, everything unfolds behind the closed doors of the school: friendship, curiosity, fear, deceit, prejudice, and persecution.

With masterful prose that is at once subtle and penetrating, Mukasonga captures a society hurtling towards horror.