Agu, a young boy in an unnamed West African nation, is recruited into a unit of guerrilla fighters as civil war engulfs his country. In a powerful, strikingly original debut that vividly captures Agu's youth and confusion, Iweala has produced a harrowing, deeply affecting novel.
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Agu, a young boy in an unnamed West African nation, is recruited into a unit of guerrilla fighters as civil war engulfs his country. In a powerful, strikingly original debut that vividly captures Agu's youth and confusion, Iweala has produced a harrowing, deeply affecting novel.
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This first person child soldier narrative brings to mind the nonfiction "A Long Way Gone" by Ishmael Beah. Agu, a boy who seems to be 11 or 12, is the main character. When revolutionaries invade his West African town in a country that seems to be Nigeria, his family is scattered, his village is destroyed, and he is forced to become a child solder or die. Under the threat of death and sometimes under the influence of drugs, he must kill or be killed. Beasts of No Nation brings to mind much of 20th-21st century history (eg, Holocaust, Cambodia, Rwanda) in which captives must do what is morally reprehensible to them in order to survive. Graphic and provocative. Could be used with the adolescent student to discuss current events or the difficulty of making moral decisions.
The narrative style is a kind of Afro-English patois that gives a distinct voice to this story.
Recommended!
MissP
Mar 5, 2008
Who's Talking? Who's Listening?
Uzodinma Iweala's first book is thought provoking. No child should be made to fight a war, but many children are. They are toting guns and responsibilities way to heavy for them. A narrative about such a child is just what we need. Perhaps my biggest argument against this book was that it was too short and too pat. I never quite suspended my disbelief, never stopped asking myself questions. What is this war? Who are the nations? To whom is Agu telling the tale? The book is written in a Nigerian Pidgin. Agu seems to be telling this story to the angelic Amy who sweeps in and offers sanctuary in the end. Agu realizes his own capacity for beastliness, but his tale never quite makes Amy realize her capacity for the same. It never makes me realize my capacity for the same. Agu arouses sympathy, but not empathy. I preferred the narrator in Ahmadou Kourouma's Allah is Not Obliged. Kourouma's boy names names, points fingers, and makes the reader uncomfortable.
