- Hardcover: 142 pages
- Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers; First Edition edition (Nov 2005)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 006079867X
- ISBN-13: 978-0060798673
- Product Dimensions: 18.5 x 13.4 x 1.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,475,493 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Review
' This is a work of visceral urgency and power: it heralds the arrival of a major talent' (Amitav Ghosh 20060610)
'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.'
(Ali Smith, Guardian 20050910)'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 20051029)‘This is an extraordinary book … horrifying expose … vivid … It casts a powerful, if gruesome spell’
(Sunday Telegraph 20051106)‘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 20051106)'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 20051106)‘His riveting revelations… make this a truly shocking and unforgettable book.’
(Waterstone’s Books Quarterly 20051006)‘First-time novelist Uzodinma Iweala has made a virtue of simplicity and, in beautifully unadorned language, has captured the universal tragedy of war and its victims.’
(Telegraph/Seven, Sally Cousins 20050901)‘Linguistically ingenious, Beasts of No Nation is a remarkable debut, a hugely resonant discourse on an uncomfortable subject.’
(Observer, Helen Zaltzman )‘This sad, unforgettable novel is a fitting testament to the countless Agus who continue to kill and be killed across that most tragic of continents.’
(Daily Telegraph, David Isaacson )‘A chilling work of fiction that has visceral impact.’
(Guardian/The Guide )'Compelling ... perturbing, painful and powerful'
(Irish Independent )'A stunningly mature debut'
(Big Issue )'Compelling, haunting and refreshing'
(The Review )'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 searing first novel'
(Independent )'Beasts of No Nation is written with the authority of someone who knows what they're talking about'
(London Review of Books )‘A simple and brutal account of war … Beasts of No Nation is a raw, compelling first novel’
(Literary Review ) --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.Kirkus Reviews
‘An astonishing debut’
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Essential Reading,
By
This review is from: Beasts of No Nation (Hardcover)
I found this book absolutely gripping. It’s the perfect length for even the most time-pushed, attention deficient of us – this vital tale of becoming set in war-torn West Africa had me so immersed that I devoured it in one reading.Although the overall theme of the book is extremely harrowing, Iweala doesn’t overplay the horrific elements in his story. Instead, because the story is told from the perspective of a shell-shocked child in his naïve, unfamiliar, and awkward vernacular, such events are recounted with an emotional detachment similar in effect to the work of Primo Levi. There is more for our imagination to engage with, this serves only to make it more moving. Momentum in the narrative is generated through the growing compassion felt for our young narrator, Agu, as he is wrenched from an idyllic and precocious childhood into complicity with a world of senseless violence and civil war that he is too young to understand. He faces an acute dilemma – to kill or be killed – and is in a permanent state of conflict as the morals he learned from the warm and peaceful community that nurtured him sit at odds with his instinct for survival, which lies in a tragic necessity to please the brutal guerilla group that pillaged his village and probably killed his father.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great book!! :-),
By A Customer
This review is from: Beasts of No Nation (Hardcover)
Beasts of No Nation is a great book!! It tells the story of a little boy, Agu who becomes a child soldier after an unfortunate turn of events in his village. It's also a story of the triumph of the human spirit against all odds. Even after "seeing more terrible thing than ten thousand men, and doing more terrible thing than twenty thousand men", Agu remembers ..."I am also having mother once, and she is also loving me." As he tells this heartbreaking story, the author maintains his sense of humour without trivializing Agu's experiences. You won't be disappointed!
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Powerful, International and Emotional,
By A Customer
This review is from: Beasts of No Nation (Hardcover)
This is not a book I normally would have read. Under strong recommendation I picked it up and was amazed. I was very impressed with the character development and the strength of the narrative voice in a relatively short book. Irrelevant factors were ignored and unimportant issues not even mentioned. The important thing was only Agu, a boy who asked only to live. I usually turn against protagonists who turn on virtue--I empathized with Agu in his darkest deeds. My only complaint concerns the use of a modern deus ex machina, but even so, it does not serve to undo the past, but rather to grant perspective--and in that goal it succeeds. All in all, a powerful read and a necessary read for anyone who is internationally-minded.
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