The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes After is a 2018 memoir by Clemantine Wamariya, who at age six escaped the Rwandan genocide of 1994 with her older sister Claire. The memoir, which is co-authored by Elizabeth Weil, follows a dual narrative that alternates between scenes from Wamariya’s journey through seven African countries and from her life in America, where she moved in 2000. Wamariya describes the dehumanization of refugees both in Africa, where she is but one of many living in nightmarish conditions, and in America, where peers and audience members at speaking engagements exploit her pain or make assumptions about her victimhood. Her memoir follows her journey as she attempts to reconnect with her family after years of separation and with her own identity, which is irreparably changed. Throughout, she uses the metaphor of the girl who smiled beads—a story told to her by her nanny, in which a girl escapes those who would capture her, leaving only beautiful beads in her wake—to depict her learning to find agency and create her own narrative. The Girl Who Smiled Beads was the winner of the 2019 ALA/YALSA Alex Award.

Plot Summary

In 2006, when she is 18, Wamariya wins an essay contest and is invited to be on the Oprah Winfrey Show with Holocaust survivor and activist Elie Wiesel. She and her older sister Claire, with whom she escaped the Rwandan genocide in 1994, are shocked when Oprah Winfrey reveals that their family, whom the sisters have not seen in 12 years, are in the studio. The family spends the weekend together, awkwardly going through the motions of visiting tourist attractions before Wamariya’s parents and siblings return to Rwanda.

The narrative continues in 1994, when Wamariya is a precocious six-year-old. Her happy childhood is interrupted when her parents send her and Claire away to escape the violence perpetrated against the Tutsis by the Hutus. The sisters end up at a refugee camp in Burundi. Wamariya struggles to retain her identity amid the dehumanizing conditions.

When Claire marries Rob, a CARE worker, believing it is their only hope of leaving the camp, the sisters move to Uvira, Zaire, where Rob’s family resides. There, Claire gives birth to her first child, Mariette. Soon the threat of violence forces them to flee to a refugee camp in Tanzania. From there they go to the city of Kigoma and then to Malawi. Claire, always industrious, manages to make money wherever they go. Rob becomes increasingly abusive. Wamariya feels safe at the Dzaleka camp, but Claire makes the decision to leave for Mozambique and then South Africa.

When Claire becomes pregnant again, Rob tells her and Wamariya to go back to Rwanda. The sisters take a bus toward Rwanda but stop in Zaire, which has been destroyed by war. At Rob’s family’s house they hide all day to remain safe from bombs and shootings. Claire gives birth to her second child, Freddy, among the fighting.

In 1999 the sisters try to return to South Africa but only make it as far as Zambia where, joined by Rob, they live in an extremely poor area of the city. Rob continues to abuse and cheat on Claire. Claire is accepted into a UN program that allows refugees to go to America, which they see as a place of unlimited wealth and opportunity.

After landing in Chicago, the family is taken care of by several church families. Wamariya is overwhelmed by the excess of food and luxury, and she is wary of the kindness extended to her family. In 2001, when she is in sixth grade, she goes to live during the week with the Thomas family in the suburbs so she can attend school. Wamariya struggles to form connections in school, feeling that her life has been different from the lives of her classmates. She feels alienated by their questions, which suggest they feel they have a right to her pain.

A chance meeting between Claire and a woman who knew their uncle in Rwanda leads to the discovery that their parents are still alive. Shortly after their appearance on Oprah, Claire visits their parents in Rwanda. Eventually their parents and siblings emigrate to America, where they move in with Claire. Tension runs high, and no one is able to talk about the past.

Now 20 years old, Wamariya finds comfort in books, and she is invited to speak at a variety of events. People cry at her words but they can’t truly understand. Wamariya is waitlisted at Yale and is finally accepted on the condition that she first attend boarding school in Connecticut. At Hotchkiss boarding school, and later at Yale, she struggles to cope with her trauma and with the objectification of her experiences. She finds comfort in literature and the realization that her memories hold the answers to who she is.

Wamariya returns to Rwanda with a delegation from the Holocaust Museum and, while impressed with the progress, is unsettled by the country’s struggle to move on after the genocide. Back in America, after moving to California with her boyfriend, she continues to speak publicly to audiences and is frustrated when people seem more interested in appearing charitable or heroic than listening to her story.

Wamariya attempts to reconnect with her mother by planning a European vacation for the two of them. Though at first the gap between them seems too wide, eventually she appreciates the comfort her mother takes in religion and thinks about how she too can find comfort. On the plane home, she begins writing her story.