Book Reviews | Film Reviews
Beasts of No Nation (Harper Collins, 2005)
Uzodinma Iweala |
 Iweala, a recent Harvard graduate, weaves a haunting tale of Agu, a child between 9 and 12 years old who is kidnapped by militia and forced to become a child soldier. The story is set in an unspecified West African country. The language and style that Iweala uses in narration is just as powerful as the story itself. Iweala uses Pidgin English, which reflects the poetic syntax and cadence of Nigerian language. Coupled with Agu’s childhood simplicity, the effect of the narration is gripping, as illustrated by the opening lines of the book:
“It is starting like this. I am feeling itch like insect crawling on my skin, and then my head is just starting to tingle between my eye, and then I am wanting to sneeze because my nose is itching, and then the air is just blowing into my ear and I am hearing many thing…”
Needless to say, the story is quite depressing. Iga is forced to commit and watch the most heinous deeds, and is himself submitted to gross abuses, including being raped by a commander of his unit. Yet Iweala writes about these horrors with sensitivity, in a way that underscores Iga’s humanity and resilience. In spite of the horrors of Iga’s life, he finds friendship through a fellow child soldier called Strika. The story also ends on a more hopeful note: Iga escapes from his guerilla unit and is rescued by humanitarian aid workers. Of course, many questions remain unanswered at the end of the book, such as whether Iga will ever find healing after his hellish ordeal, and of course, Iga’s story represents the lives of other child soldiers (there are roughly 300,000 child soldiers in the world). Ultimately, though, the strength of Beasts of No Nation is in its personification of an otherwise tragic, but distant, phenomenon. As Iga puts it at the end of the book:
"If I am telling this to you it will be making you to think that I am some sort of beast or devil. ... I am all of this thing, but I am also having mother once, and she is loving me."
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