Monsters without a homeland

It's night. It's day. It's light. It's dark. It's very hot. It's very cold. It's rainy. It's very sunny. It's very dry. It's very humid. But we fight all the time. No matter what happens, we always fight. All the time, bullets devour everything, leaves and trees and land and people – devour everything – making people bleed from everywhere, and blood flows into all the bushes. The bleeding makes people shout and scream all the time, screaming for their mothers and fathers, God and the devil, screaming in a language no one ever understands. Sometimes I cover my ears so I don't hear the bullets and screams, and sometimes I'm the one screaming and shooting, so I hear nothing but my own voice. Sometimes I want to cry out loud, but no one cries in this place. If I cry, they will look at me because a soldier shouldn't cry.

***

“Beasts of No Nation” is the debut work of Nigerian writer Uzodinma Iweala, telling the story of the child Agu, who was senselessly thrust into combat. In a country immersed in civil war, gang fighters capture him, stealing his tranquil childhood – a childhood defined by the warmth of family, playing with friends, the aspirations of school, and the comfort of church – and force him into a brutal war from which only the fierce beast survives. The child experiences the horrors of war, hunger, fear, and torment, narrating to us, through his unique and captivating, yet savage and innocent language, a painful story and a biography of misery that we experience with all its sensitive and honest details.

The book received numerous awards and was adapted into a play and then a film produced by Netflix, which won the NME award for Best Film in 2016.