Allah is Not Obliged - Softcover

Ahmadou Kourouma

Softcover

ISBN 10: 030727957X ISBN 13: 9780307279576

Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group, 2007

Synopsis

ALLAH IS NOT OBLIGED TO BE FAIR ABOUT ALL THE THINGS HE DOES HERE ON EARTH.These are the words of the boy soldier Birahima in the final masterpiece by one of Africa's most celebrated writers, Ahmadou Kourouma. When ten-year-old Birahima's mother dies, he leaves his native village in the Ivory Coast, accompanied by the sorcerer and cook Yacouba, to search for his aunt Mahan. Crossing the border into Liberia, they are seized by rebels and forced into military service. Birahima is given a Kalashnikov, minimal rations of food, a small supply of dope and a tiny wage. Fighting in a chaotic civil war alongside many other boys, Birahima sees death, torture, dismemberment and madness but somehow manages to retain his own sanity. Raw and unforgettable, despairing yet filled with laughter, Allah Is Not Obliged reveals the ways in which children's innocence and youth are compromised by war.

About this title

Review:

"A tour de force -- original, irreverent, brutal, funny, poetic -- in which history and myth are brilliantly evoked." --The Independent (London)"This is one of the funniest, most powerful, most intense novels to appear in French for a decade." --Le Nouvel Observateur (Paris)"Shocking and deeply moving. . . . . An African Lord of the Flies." --The Guardian (London)"Witty and wholly authentic. . . . Spellbinding. . . . Kourouma has been likened to Voltaire. . . Gabriel García Márquez also comes to mind, likewise John Updike's sparkling ventriloquism." --The Spectator (London)

From the Publisher:

An extraordinarily powerful and affecting novel of Africa's child-soldiers, by French Africa's pre-eminent novelist. In the tradition of City of God.

About this edition

• Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 030727957X
• ISBN 13: 9780307279576
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224