Beasts of No Nation

"I was able to expel from my mind all human hope. On every form of joy, in order to strangle it, I pounced stealthily like a wild animal"

Une Saison en Enfer

I like dark books. Every once in a while there is a book that is too dark, too haunting, too hopeless for even me. I don't think this is a fault of the book. I think this is a fault of mine that is wrapped up in the privilege of white America. I've never had to imagine the world of in country warfare, of child soldiers, of rape as a weapon of war. It is something that has only ever flitted on the edge of my conscious, seen as side stories in Hollywood movies like Blood Diamond. It is something else entirely to approach these real life things from a first person narration.

Uzodinma Iweala's Beasts of No Nation is short, only 142 pages, but it is packed with rhythmic prose telling the haunting story of a boy named Agu in a war torn, West African nation. When his country dissolves into a civil war he is recruited into a unit of guerrilla fighters. Reeling from the death of his father, and powerless against the ruthless but paternalistic Commander, he struggles to make sense of the new reality that is so different from what he new before the war. 

This book was powerful. Told from Agu's perspective, the disjunctive language and rhythmic prose drive the story, and made the contrast between the time before and during the war even more apparent. The confusion that Agu feels as the story unfolds is extremely powerful. The story is a powerful look into the lives of child soldiers.

I had a really hard time reading this book. The writing was almost too good in the fact that I was really freaked out by the events in the book. In 2004 it was estimated that there were 100,000 child soldiers in Africa. This book really drove home the fact that desperate times drive people to truly desperate actions just to survive. Refugees leave their homes because it would be incredibly dangerous to stay, and they can be the lucky ones when so many are trying to flee but cant.

This was a great book, but not for the faint of heart or the squeamish. It has also been  adapted for the screen in a Netflix series.