Small by Small 
Thomas Jones
Some fictional characters are easier to imagine being than others, either because they’re more like us (‘we’ being whoever’s doing the imagining, whether readers or writers), or because they’re more like characters familiar from other stories. Agu, the narrator of Beasts of No Nation, Uzodinma Iweala’s short, intense and ambitious first novel, is a rebel soldier in a civil war in an anonymous African country. He has no sense of the cause he is fighting for, or even who his leaders are, beyond his immediate superiors, men he knows only as Commandant and Luftenant. He spends his days ‘walking and fighting and soldiering and running’ – ‘soldiering’ encompasses killing, raping, mutilating. Most nights, he is himself raped by Commandant. It’s not surprising that Agu doesn’t understand the larger political purpose of all this: he is, after all, only a child.
Subscribers to the print edition can log in to view the entire article. For information about subscribing to the London Review of Books click here. This article is also available for purchase online: buy this article.
Other articles by this contributor:
Diary · The Last Days of eBay
This Is Not That Place · David Eggers escapes from Sudan
Rut after Rut after Rut · Denis Johnson’s Vietnam
Mr Down-by-the-Levee · Updike’s Terrorist
Diary · My Life as a Geek
Whisky and Soda Man · J.G. Ballard
Forget the Dylai Lama · Bob Dylan
swete lavender · Molesworth
print layout
tell a friend