Beasts of No Nation

(Paperback)

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WITH A NEW FOREWORD BY KATIE KITAMURA

'A work of visceral urgency and power' AMITAV GHOSH

'Totally and shockingly alive from its very first paragraph' ALI SMITH, GUARDIAN

'An extraordinary book' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

Agu is just a boy when war arrives at his village. His mother and sister are rescued by the UN, while he and his father remain to fight the rebels. 'Run!' shouts his father when the rebels arrive. And Agu does run. Straight into the rebels' path.

In a vivid, sparkling voice, Agu tells the story of what happens to him next. His story is shocking and painful, and completely unforgettable.

Reviews

A work of visceral urgency and power: it heralds the arrival of a major talent * Amitav Ghosh *
Extraordinary . . . you don't come across writing like this very often * Bookseller *
So scorched by loss and anger that it's hard to hold and so gripping in its sheer hopeless lifeforce that it's hard to put down * Guardian *
A harrowing and compelling vision . . . the narrator's voice is so authentic you have to check you are still reading fiction . . . This is a novel which leaves an impression like a blood-soaked hand print, disturbing not only for the terror around this cleaving, pulverising slayer, but the terror turning to 'ennui' within him. To call it shocking would be to do it a disservice. To call the writing beautiful would hardly be praise. To call the book staggering would be an understatement * Waterstones Books Quarterly *
The power of his material and its hideous relevance rolls all before it . . . This book about children that is in no sense a children's book deserves to be read * Independent *
An extraordinary book . . . horrifying expose . . . vivid . . . . It casts a powerful, if gruesome spell * Sunday Telegraph *
Iweala makes a compelling story from experience which in its nature defies articulation . . . Uzodinma Iweala's is a confident and promising new voice * Times Literary Supplement *
Gives a name, a voice and a heart to one of Africa's innumerable child soldiers . . . This is urgent writing, starkly unsentimental and convincing * Observer *
Compelling . . . perturbing, painful and powerful * Irish Independent *
Stream-like sentences that convey irrestible, rushing activitiy . . . Iweala's powerful debut recalls Saro-Wiwa's first-person masterpiece of a soldier-boy * The Times *
A simple and brutal account of war . . . Beasts of No Nation is a raw, compelling first novel * Literary Review *

Author Bio

Uzodinma Iweala received the 2006 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for Beasts of No Nation. In 2007, he was 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.