num_pages: 142
description: “Remarkable. . . . Iweala never wavers from a gripping, pulsing narrative voice. . . . He captures the horror of ethnic violence in all its brutality and the vulnerability of youth in all its innocence.” 
  —Entertainment Weekly 
(A)The harrowing, utterly original debut novel by Uzodinma Iweala about the life of a child soldier in a war-torn African countryAs civil war rages in an unnamed West-African nation, Agu, the school-aged protagonist of this stunning novel, is recruited into a unit of guerilla fighters. Haunted by his father’s own death at the hands of militants, which he fled just before witnessing, Agu is vulnerable to the dangerous yet paternal nature of his new commander.While the war rages on, Agu becomes increasingly divorced from the life he had known before the conflict started—a life of school friends, church services, and time with his family, still intact. As he vividly recalls these sunnier times, his daily reality continues to spin further downward into inexplicable brutality, primal fear, and loss of selfhood. In a powerful, strikingly original voice, Uzodinma Iweala leads the reader through the random travels, betrayals, and violence that mark Agu’s new community. Electrifying and engrossing, Beasts of No Nation announces the arrival of an extraordinary writer.
language: English
title: Beasts of No Nation
titlecomplete: Beasts of No Nation
genres: Literature, Novels, Adult, War, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Africa, Contemporary, African Literature, Nigeria
ratings_count: 6306
awards: awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award, awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: James Tait Black Memorial Prize
category: Fiction, awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: Los Angeles Times Book Prize
category: Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction
publisher: Harper Perennial