Faced with the prospect of having to repeat a year in school, twelve-year-old Milan tells his parents the first lie he can think of: his bad grades are due to the genocide in Rwanda, his mother's homeland. In reality, he knows little about Rwanda or his mother's past, which she has kept secret. Soon after, Claude arrives, a boy from Rwanda with a mysterious wound and shadowy backstory. Thrilled to have a new playmate, Milan treats Claude as a brother until one day, he is gone, back to Rwanda as quickly as he came.

Four years later, Milan travels for the first time to Rwanda, encountering a beguiling country and family members he never knew existed. He reunites with Claude and spends time with Eusebia, his mother's childhood friend, who lives with her grandmother Rosalie and her newborn baby Stella. He returns to Rwanda again 7 years later to see Claude testify in the gacaca trials in front of the men responsible for killing his family.

Over the course of many years, Milan will return to Rwanda again and again, always confronting new sides of himself and those he loves. Meanwhile, Stella wants to tell Rosalie's life story, which becomes the story of the country's path towards justice through testimony. Spanning generations and time, Jacaranda is a rich and deeply felt portrait of a man seeking to understand his family and his nation as it heals from the unthinkable.