Côte d'Ivoire, or the Ivory Coast, is here:
And here's your description:
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.
Before book stuff, let's do a little life update. I've started back working full time, so it's taken me a little longer to get through this book. I only get half an hour for lunch, so I don't have time to read on break like I used to, but I'm doing what I can. I'll try to get back in the swing of things and churn them out faster. I probably would have done that if I'd been more interested in the book. And here we go.
In the description, it mentions the narrator keeping his sanity, I basically interpreted as remaining a slightly annoying preteen kid. On the second page are definitions for 3 local swear words: faforo (a father's cock), gnamokode (bastard), and walahe (I swear by Allah). I'd say about 60% of the paragraphs in this book ended with a declaration of one of these swear words. On the next page he explains that he has 4 different dictionaries to help tell his story, and that he's using them for the big words. At first I thought it was cute, that the "big words" would be defined, but that got old pretty quickly.
But let me backtrack a little. I was hesitant about this book because it doesn't solely take place in the Ivory Coast. But then I had to remind myself that in some parts of Africa and Europe, going to different countries is as simple as going to different states here. That was reinforced in the book as he talked about the tribal wars that seemed to span across a few countries, and as they traveled they just switched to joining whatever faction was strongest in that particular area.
There were a couple of things that I did find interesting. Firstly, he made a point of saying that the native Africans and the descendants of American slaves who had gone back to Africa had a lot of conflict. It makes sense, but it wasn't something I'd thought of. Also the first tribal leader that the narrator encounters seems to encompass all the main African faiths: he uses a Q'uran, a Bible, and grigris (a kind of amulet believed to keep the wearer safe). Also at one point he uses both American and European ways of writing the date. That might have happened in translation, but whatever.
But he also used the n-word a lot, which made me super uncomfortable. Maybe it's not as big of a deal in other parts of the world? I dunno, I still don't like it.
This one just fell a little short for me. Maybe it's because I've read some books that are actual accounts of the awful reality of war and this fictional account seemed like a punk boasting about his exploits. I mean, it's not like I enjoy reading all that horrid stuff, but I think it's important to know the history of it. Or maybe I'm just not that into reading child-based stories.
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