Chris Abani Song for Night

Annotation

';A devastating portrait of a boy holding onto the shreds of his innocence during a war that deliberately, remorselessly works to yank it away.'Los Angeles Times PartInferno, partParadise Lost, part Sunjata epic,Song for Nightis the story of a West African boy soldier's terrifying yet oddly beautiful journey through a nightmare landscape of brutal war in search of his lost platoon. The mute protagonisthis vocal cords cut to lower the risk of detection by the enemywrites in a ghostly voice about his fellow minesweepers, the things he's witnessed, and the things he's done, each chapter headed by a line of the sign language these children invented. This ';immersive and dreamlike' novella (Publishers Weekly, starred review) by a PEN/Hemingway Award winner is unlike anything else written about an African war. ';Not since Jerzy Kosinski'sThe Painted Birdor Agota Kristof's Notebook Trilogy has there been such a harrowing novel about what it's like to be a young person in a war. That Chris Abani is able to find humanity, mercy, and even, yes, forgiveness, amid such devastation is something of a miracle.'Rebecca Brown, author ofThe End of Youth ';Impressive and fast-pacednarrated with such dry and lucid precision that it brings to mind Babel, Hemingway, McCarthy.'Esquire