Beasts of No Nation: A Novel

From Publishers Weekly Starred Review. Iweala's visceral debut is unrelenting in its brutality and unremitting in its intensity. Agu, the precocious, gentle son of a village schoolteacher father and a Bible-reading mother, is dragooned into an unnamed West African nation's mad civil war—a slip of a boy forced, almost overnight, to shoulder a soldier's bloody burden. The preteen protagonist is molded into a fighting man by his demented guerrilla leader and, after witnessing his father's savage slaying, by an inchoate need to belong to some kind of family, no matter how depraved. He becomes a killer, gripped by a muddled sense of revenge as he butchers a mother and daughter when his ragtag unit raids a defenseless village; starved for both food and affection, he is sodomized by his commandant and rewarded with extra food scraps and a dry place to sleep. The subject of the 23-year-old novelist's story—Iweala is American born of Nigerian descent—is gripping enough. But even more stunning is the extraordinarily original voice with which this tale is told. The impressionistic narration by a boy constantly struggling to understand the incomprehensible is always breathless, often breathtaking and sometimes heartbreaking. Its odd singsong cadence and twisted use of tense take a few pages to get used to, but Iweala's electrifying prose soon enough propels a harrowing read. (Nov. 8) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From The New Yorker This startling début by a young American-Nigerian writer follows the fortunes of Agu, a child soldier fighting in the civil war of an unnamed African country. Iweala's acute imagining of Agu's perspective allows him to depict the war as a mesh of bestial pleasures and pain. As seen through Agu's eyes, machetes sound like music, and bodies come apart on roads so cracked that you can see "the red mud bleeding from underneath." Agu has a child's primitive drive that enables him to survive his descent into hell, and, despite the brutality he witnesses and participates in, to keep hold of something resembling optimism. The contrast between his belief in the future and the horrific descriptions of the world around him makes Agu a haunting narrator. Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker From Bookmarks Magazine Iweala, 23, a first-time novelist, does not know violence firsthand. But as an undergraduate at Harvard, he traveled to Nigeria, conducted research, and turned his senior thesis (directed by Jamaica Kincaid) into a novel. The topic couldnx92t be timelier: an estimated 100,000 to 300,000 child soldiers currently fight in armed conflicts around the world. Written in an appropriately choppy, raw present-tense that captures Agux92s visceral, gut-wrenching emotions as he kills innocent women and children, Beasts introduces a powerful new voice in fiction. Itx92s not an easy one to swallow, however. But despite Agux92s transformation, critics remained astonishingly sympathetic to him until the end. Though circumstances may shape people forever, "Iweala seems to tell us in this potent work, no onex97especially a childx97is ever totally beyond hope" ( San Francisco Chronicle ). Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc. From Booklist *Starred Review* "I am not bad boy. I am not bad boy. I am soldier and soldier is not bad if he is killing." Set in an unnamed West African country, Iweala's first novel shows civil war from a child's viewpoint. After his mother and sister escape and his father is killed, the traumatized young narrator is discovered by guerrilla fighters. Frightened and alone, he joins the men, becoming a soldier in an impoverished army of terror headed by a charismatic and treacherous leader who tells his young followers that killing "is like falling in love. You cannot be thinking about it." Writing in the boy's West African English, Iweala distills his story to the most urgent and visceral atrocities, and the scenes of bloodshed and rape are made more excruciating by the lyrical, rhythmic language. In the narrator's memories of village life, biblical stories, and creation myths, Iweala explores the mutable separation between human and beast and a child's struggle to rediscover his own humanity after war: "I am some sort of beast or devil," the boy says, "But I am also having mother once, and she is loving me." Readers will come away feeling shattered by this haunting, original story. Gillian Engberg Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved “A tour de force.” — Washington Post Book World “Brilliant. . . . This is a remarkable novel that suggests a dazzling literary future.” — People (****) “A startling debut…. Iweala’s acute imagining allows him to depict the war as a mesh of bestial pleasures and pain.” — The New Yorker “An outstanding first novel. . . . Resonant, beautiful. . . . Iweala’s book will be readily embraced by readers.” — Janet Maslin, New York Times “Electrifying. . . . A harrowing read. . . The story is gripping enough. But even more stunning is the extraordinarily original voice. . . . Always breathless, often breathtaking, and sometimes heartbreaking.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review) “Searing and visceral. . . . Agu’s unblinking innocence gives the story its most powerful and disturbing beauty.” — San Diego Union-Tribune “The hypnotic present tense, first-person narration draws the reader deep into the child soldier’s shattered psyche.” — Washington Post “Remarkable. . . . Iweala never wavers from a gripping, pulsing narrative voice. . . . He captures the horror of ethnic violence in all its brutality and the vulnerability of youth in all its innocence.” — Entertainment Weekly (A) “Devastating. . . a raw and brutal story about the horrifying effects of cruelty and the incredible power of hope.” — Atlanta Journal-Constitution “This is an extraordinary book. . . . so vivid [and] powerful.” — Sunday Telegraph “Uzodinma Iweala is a gifted and brave writer.” — Chris Abani, author of GraceLand “A harrowing account of the intoxication of violence…that offers no easy answers or explanations.” — Library Journal “In Beasts of No Nation Uzodinma Iweala has crafted a voice that is equal to the demands of a blood-soaked reality. This is a work of visceral urgency and power: it heralds the arrival of a major talent.” — Amitav Ghosh, author of The Glass Palace “An astonishing debut. . . . Iweala writes with great restraint, mindful that the most important battle is for a boy’s soul: Redemption is possible, even if a return to innocence is not.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Iweala gives his hero a voice that is literary yet poetic. . . . The acute characterization, the adroit mixture of color and restraint, and the horrific emotional force of the narrative are impressive. Still more impressive is Iweala’s ability to maintain not only our sympathy but our affection for his central character.” — New York Times Book Review “Searing. . . . An extraordinary debut novel.” — Time magazine “Stark, vivid. . . . Written like a nightmare in progress, this story is a fever dream of voice and consciousness.” — San Francisco Chronicle “Uzodinma Iweala is receiving not just hype but praise from reviewers for the frighteningly convincing voice of a preteen soldier.” — New York Magazine The harrowing, utterly original debut novel by Uzodinma Iweala about the life of a child soldier in a war-torn African country—now a critically-acclaimed Netflix original film directed by Cary Fukunaga ( True Detective ) and starring Idris Elba ( Mandela, The Wire ). As civil war rages in an unnamed West-African nation, Agu, the school-aged protagonist of this stunning debut novel, is recruited into a unit of guerilla fighters. Haunted by his father’s own death at the hands of militants, which he fled just before witnessing, Agu is vulnerable to the dangerous yet paternal nature of his new commander. While the war rages on, Agu becomes increasingly divorced from the life he had known before the conflict started—a life of school friends, church services, and time with his family, still intact. As he vividly recalls these sunnier times, his daily reality continues to spin further downward into inexplicable brutality, primal fear, and loss of selfhood. In a powerful, strikingly original voice, Uzodinma Iweala leads the reader through the random travels, betrayals, and violence that mark Agu’s new community. Electrifying and engrossing, Beasts of No Nation announces the arrival of an extraordinary new writer. Uzodinma Iwealaxa0received the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award, and the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, all for Beasts of No Nation . He was also selected as one of Granta ’s Best Young American Novelists. A graduate of Harvard University and the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, he lives in New York City and Lagos, Nigeria. Read more