Starred Review for Publishers Weekly (Mon Feb 06 00:00:00 CST 2023)

Deogratias means "thanks be to God," and it's the name of a boy coming of age in Rwanda in 1994. He is just figuring out what it means to be a man, and wrestling with the feelings he harbors toward two sisters, Apollinaria and Benina. The sisters are themselves struggling to establish their own place in society and understand the difficult decisions their mother, Venetia, has made—Apollinaria's real father is a white Catholic priest, and Venetia has been forced to leave the country in the past to save her daughters. But Deogratias is Hutu, and they are Tutsi, a simple fact that renders all of their internal battles irrelevant. This award-winning comic was originally published in Belgium in 2000 and has an introduction explaining the history leading to the Rwandan genocide. The heartbreaking power of <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">Deogratias is how it keeps the reader distant from the atrocities by showing the trivial cruelties of everyday life before and after the genocide. Stassen is a journalist who lives in Rwanda, and his art is bold and clear, using different color palettes to seamlessly shift between before and after. There is no catharsis, only the realization that even justice turns its champion into a monster. <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">(Apr.)

ALA Booklist (Mon Feb 06 00:00:00 CST 2023)

The tragedy and international shame of the Rwandan genocide that took place in the 1990s is realized in this fictional and symbolism-studded parable. The title character, a dehumanized, Hutu man, crawls through many of these clear-line, full-color pages, often hallucinating and in need of drink in a fruitless effort to drown his memories of the rapes, pillages, and massacres visited upon the Tutsi minority. European responsibility for the ethnic war is presented cogently and without reluctance through the actions and dialogue of several Belgian characters. Stassen, a Belgian who lives in Rwanda, depicts the horror and violence (including brutal rape and the starvation of children) in small, compact panels and uses moody colorings and expressive characterizations to convey much of the human tragedy. Several pages of background on the genocide will help ease readers unfamiliar with the history into the story. For the same mature teen audience that reads Joe Sacco's Safe Area Gorazde: The War in Eastern Bosnia, 1992-1995 (2002), this book vividly shows the power of fiction to introduce fact. For adult readers as well as YAs.

Horn Book (Mon Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2019)

First published in Belgium in 2000, this harrowing, heartbreaking graphic novel depicts the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Darkly luminous, woodcut-like illustrations show Deogratias, a destroyed Rwandan Hutu man turned beast, navigating a terrible present, while flashbacks show a worse past, including horrific scenes of atrocities. The new introduction by Rwandan author Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse provides historical and academic context.

Kirkus Reviews

The impact of the Rwandan genocide through the eyes of a Hutu teenager.Deogratias is beset with flashbacks of the war and his role in inflicting carnage. We first meet him after the bloodshed, in a bar where he meets an old friend, a white French sergeant. As the story jumps back in time, readers learn about young Deogratias' heavy drinking, which works to keep the memories of his horrific behavior at bay and enables him to convince himself that he isn't a dog—inhumane. Yet, although every drop is meant to prevent his metaphorical, and even sometimes physical, transformation into a dog, we witness how Deogratias was compelled to join the Hutu militia and murder two Tutsi friends. Running throughout is the muted narrative of the pastoral work of the white European men of the church and the ways in which they help and complicate Rwandan lives. The lucid, sometimes-painful imagery—depicted in intense colors, with highly expressive faces—accompanying this story illustrates the ways in which the hierarchies besetting race and ethnicity, imposed by the sociopolitical climate, all come to bear on the decisions made by the characters. Readers can't help but simultaneously empathize with and loathe Deogratias' decisions as his PTSD shuttles one back and forth between his reveries of past and present.A graphic novel of regret riddled with inescapable grief, capturing attention from the outset, with a stinging and near-to-cathartic ending. (foreword) (Graphic novel. 14-18)

School Library Journal (Mon Feb 06 00:00:00 CST 2023)

Gr 10 Up-In this harrowing fictionalized account of the Rwandan genocide, readers meet Deogratias, a teenaged Hutu. His friends Benina and Apollinaria are Tutsia race that is being ethnically cleansed by Hutu extremists. As the conflict escalates, Deogratias witnesses murders and is forced to become involved in brutal acts of violence. He suffers a mental breakdown. The story is told through a series of flashbacks while he skates the line between rational and insane. Stassen spares his readers none of the brutality and visceral cruelties of this atrocity. Scenes of rape, harsh language, and some sexual content solidly designate this book for a mature audience. An introduction sets the backdrop and explains the historical significance of the period. This is one of the most intense, gripping graphic novels to date; libraries with other factually themed titles, such as those by Joe Sacco, Marjane Satrapi, and Art Spiegelman, should purchase it. A masterful work with vibrant, confident art, this book will stay with and haunt its readers. Jennifer Feigelman, Goshen Public Library and Historical Society, NY

Voice of Youth Advocates (Mon Feb 06 00:00:00 CST 2023)

In this Belgian graphic novel set in the 1990s, Deogratias is a young madman who often sees himself as a dog. Readers learn his story through extended flashbacks, which show how a feckless Hutu boy fell in love with a Tutsi girl just days before the devastating Rwandan genocide. Their fates are inevitably tragic, which leads Deogratias into the madness that now consumes him, sending him wandering the countryside, exacting revenge in search of a redemption that does not exist. In the end, the reader can only feel the same horrified sorrow, disbelief, and pity of a priest who laments of Deogratias, "He was a child of God." This dark, heartbreaking tale is simply and cleanly designed, beginning with a cogent synopsis of the Rwandan genocide and its aftermath. Its richly tinted comic strip-style panels are realistically drawn, and the story is easy to follow once readers realize that the aftermath story panels are outlined in black, whereas the flashback panels are not. Easy to follow, however, does not mean easy to read, although the story manages to convey its horror with a minimum of gore. Most of the atrocities take place off the page, in the mind of the reader, although there is enough blood and nudity to keep it out of middle school libraries. Recommend this book to students of recent African history or to readers compelled by Art Spiegelman's Maus books. As a condemnation of man's inhumanity to man, it will linger in the memory.-Rebecca C. Moore.