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Review
'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 20051029)'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 20051106)'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 20051006)'His riveting revelations... make this a truly shocking and unforgettable book.'
(Waterstone's Books Quarterly 20050901)'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 )'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 )Kirkus Reviews
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Customer Reviews
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.
Detached descriptions of savage rape and murder are juxtaposed with touching recollections of his loving upbringing and the culture that he is now, unwillingly, helping to destroy. These pre-war accounts tell of a West African (we are never given a specific country) way of life and heighten a sense of loss and injustice, of innocents getting dragged into a conflict that they never wanted.
If you have read books like A Clockwork Orange (also a book about coming of age, but set in a fictional dystopia rather than in an historical anarchy) you will not have difficulty adjusting to the language Iweala deploys – it’s all in English, you just have to mind the tenses. You will probably also really enjoy and appreciate the vernacular style that takes you much deeper into the character and the rhythms of the world that he describes.
These days it’s all too easy to become absorbed with the war our government started in Iraq, and to forget all the other, often more atrocious wars taking place elsewhere. This book raises awareness of just how intolerable life is for so many people in West Africa, and inspires one to read more about this situation. If our governments were as committed as they say they are to creating world peace, they would address issues of poverty and dictatorship in Africa, rather than creating more death and disorder by channeling their resources on the oil-rich Arab states.
It's an utterly unlovely novel. The writing is hard and angular, often graphically nasty and packs no punches. As such, it is hard to like but probably a truer and better book for it all the same. The narrator's pidgin English is rather annoying - I always dislike this style in a novel - but nevertheless it retains its power.
The brutal, factual style makes it rather unemotionally involving, which is a shame. But it is compelling and readable, and a topic that needs to be written about. The writing is clear and believable and makes you feel as though you are there. I'm giving three stars because it wasn't that enjoyable, but it really depends on what style of writing you like. At the risk of over-generalising, I feel it's more of a man's book, but of course taste varies greatly. Overall a good, if uncomfortable, read.
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