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Allah Is Not Obliged
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.
215 pages, Paperback
First published August 12, 2000
About the author
Ahmadou Kourouma
16 books83 followersAhmadou Kourouma, (November 24, 1927 – December 11, 2003) was an Ivorian novelist.
The eldest son of a distinguished Malinké family, Ahmadou Kourouma was born in 1927 in Côte d'Ivoire. Raised by his uncle, he initially pursued studies in Bamako, Mali. From 1950 to 1954, when his country was still under French colonial control, he participated in French military campaigns in Indochina, after which he journeyed to France to study mathematics in Lyon.
Kourouma returned to his native Côte d'Ivoire after it won its independence in 1960, yet he quickly found himself questioning the government of Félix Houphouët-Boigny. After brief imprisonment, Kourouma spent several years in exile, first in Algeria (1964-1969), then in Cameroon (1974-1984) and Togo (1984-1994), before finally returning to live in Côte d'Ivoire.
Determined to speak out against the betrayal of legitimate African aspirations at the dawn of independence, Kourouma was drawn into an experiment in fiction, his first novel, Les soleils des indépendances (The Suns of Independence, 1970). Les soleils des indépendances contains a critical treatment of post-colonial governments in Africa. Twenty years later, his second book Monnè, outrages et défis, a history of a century of colonialism, was published. In 1998, he published En attendant le vote des bêtes sauvages, (translated as Waiting for the Wild Beasts to Vote), a satire of post colonial Africa in the style of Voltaire in which a griot recounts the story of a tribal hunter's transformation into a dictator, inspired by president Gnassingbé Eyadéma of Togo. In 2000, he published Allah n'est pas obligé (translated as Allah is Not Obliged), a tale of an orphan who becomes a child soldier when traveling to visit his aunt in Liberia.
At the outbreak of civil war in Côte d'Ivoire in 2002, Kourouma stood against the war as well as against the concept of Ivorian nationalism, calling it "an absurdity which has led us to chaos." President Laurent Gbagbo accused him of supporting rebel groups from the north of the country.
In France, each of Ahmadou Kourouma's novels has been greeted with great acclaim, sold exceptionally well, and been showered with prizes including Prix Renaudot in year 2000 and The Prix Goncourt des Lycéens for Allah n'est pas obligé . In the English-speaking world, Kourouma has yet to make much of an impression: despite some positive reviews, his work remains largely unknown outside college classes in African fiction.
At the time of his death, he was working on a sequel to Allah n'est pas obligé, entitled Quand on refuse on dit non (translated roughly as When One Disagrees, One Says No), in which the protagonist of the first novel, a child soldier, is demobilized and returns to his home in Côte d'Ivoire, in which a new regional conflict has arisen.
The eldest son of a distinguished Malinké family, Ahmadou Kourouma was born in 1927 in Côte d'Ivoire. Raised by his uncle, he initially pursued studies in Bamako, Mali. From 1950 to 1954, when his country was still under French colonial control, he participated in French military campaigns in Indochina, after which he journeyed to France to study mathematics in Lyon.
Kourouma returned to his native Côte d'Ivoire after it won its independence in 1960, yet he quickly found himself questioning the government of Félix Houphouët-Boigny. After brief imprisonment, Kourouma spent several years in exile, first in Algeria (1964-1969), then in Cameroon (1974-1984) and Togo (1984-1994), before finally returning to live in Côte d'Ivoire.
Determined to speak out against the betrayal of legitimate African aspirations at the dawn of independence, Kourouma was drawn into an experiment in fiction, his first novel, Les soleils des indépendances (The Suns of Independence, 1970). Les soleils des indépendances contains a critical treatment of post-colonial governments in Africa. Twenty years later, his second book Monnè, outrages et défis, a history of a century of colonialism, was published. In 1998, he published En attendant le vote des bêtes sauvages, (translated as Waiting for the Wild Beasts to Vote), a satire of post colonial Africa in the style of Voltaire in which a griot recounts the story of a tribal hunter's transformation into a dictator, inspired by president Gnassingbé Eyadéma of Togo. In 2000, he published Allah n'est pas obligé (translated as Allah is Not Obliged), a tale of an orphan who becomes a child soldier when traveling to visit his aunt in Liberia.
At the outbreak of civil war in Côte d'Ivoire in 2002, Kourouma stood against the war as well as against the concept of Ivorian nationalism, calling it "an absurdity which has led us to chaos." President Laurent Gbagbo accused him of supporting rebel groups from the north of the country.
In France, each of Ahmadou Kourouma's novels has been greeted with great acclaim, sold exceptionally well, and been showered with prizes including Prix Renaudot in year 2000 and The Prix Goncourt des Lycéens for Allah n'est pas obligé . In the English-speaking world, Kourouma has yet to make much of an impression: despite some positive reviews, his work remains largely unknown outside college classes in African fiction.
At the time of his death, he was working on a sequel to Allah n'est pas obligé, entitled Quand on refuse on dit non (translated roughly as When One Disagrees, One Says No), in which the protagonist of the first novel, a child soldier, is demobilized and returns to his home in Côte d'Ivoire, in which a new regional conflict has arisen.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 247 reviews
April 16, 2013
This book purports to be the story of Birahima, an orphan 10 years of age, and his odyssey to reunite with his closest living relative, an aunt who resides in (shudder) Liberia. Except that it's not just a story about Birahima, it's really a story about the western part of Africa and the utter destruction and desolation of these poor exploited countries, particularly Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Kourouma speaks through the medium of Birahima, and in so doing gives the reader an account of the roots of the multi-faceted conflicts plaguing the region. I think it is probably the most lucid explanation of the tangled political situation that I have ever read, and since it is related to the reader in a child's voice, it is thereby easier to understand.
Some might write this off as poorly written: Birahima is pedantic and repetetive and hugely profane in his story. He uses the "N" word A LOT! If you're sensitive or queasy in your choice of literature, you might want to shy away from the book on those grounds. It is violent, obscenely violent, but not falsely so. If you need verification, the dismemberment of Samuel Doe and the mass exeution of members of the Liberian regime can be seen on Youtube in living colour. I think that Kourouma is a genius, a master of irony; where he appears to ridicule and castigate, he is really doing so in order to educate the reader regarding the woeful plight of the poor people of the region who suffer under the exploitation of warlords, thieves and lunatics.
Kourouma speaks through the medium of Birahima, and in so doing gives the reader an account of the roots of the multi-faceted conflicts plaguing the region. I think it is probably the most lucid explanation of the tangled political situation that I have ever read, and since it is related to the reader in a child's voice, it is thereby easier to understand.
Some might write this off as poorly written: Birahima is pedantic and repetetive and hugely profane in his story. He uses the "N" word A LOT! If you're sensitive or queasy in your choice of literature, you might want to shy away from the book on those grounds. It is violent, obscenely violent, but not falsely so. If you need verification, the dismemberment of Samuel Doe and the mass exeution of members of the Liberian regime can be seen on Youtube in living colour. I think that Kourouma is a genius, a master of irony; where he appears to ridicule and castigate, he is really doing so in order to educate the reader regarding the woeful plight of the poor people of the region who suffer under the exploitation of warlords, thieves and lunatics.
December 12, 2023
Alá Não é Obrigado é um romance que acompanha a vida de Birahima, um jovem que se torna uma criança soldado na África Ocidental devastada pela guerra.
E, para começar... e um... Chamo-me Birahima. Sou um p'tit nègre. Não por ser black e miúdo. Não! Sou p'tit nègre porque falo mal francês. É assim.
A história desenrola-se durante um conflito civil, e aborda temas como violência, sobrevivência e a perda da inocência. À medida que Birahima enfrenta o caos, somos confrontados com as repercussões da guerra numa pessoa vulnerável, compelida a viver uma existência marcada pela brutalidade.
Mas então comecei a não entender nada deste maldito universo. A não topar coisa nenhuma neste bordel de mundo. A não enxergar népias nesta porcaria de sociedade humana. O Estabanado, com os fetiches, acabava de conquistar Niangbo! É verdade ou não é verdade essa porcaria dos grigris? Quem me pode responder? Onde ir buscar a resposta? A nenhures. Por isso se calhar é verdade, o grigri... ou talvez seja falso, uma aldrabice, um embuste de todo o tamanho e de todo o comprimento da África. A faforo (eu do meu pai)!
73/198 – Costa do Marfim
E, para começar... e um... Chamo-me Birahima. Sou um p'tit nègre. Não por ser black e miúdo. Não! Sou p'tit nègre porque falo mal francês. É assim.
A história desenrola-se durante um conflito civil, e aborda temas como violência, sobrevivência e a perda da inocência. À medida que Birahima enfrenta o caos, somos confrontados com as repercussões da guerra numa pessoa vulnerável, compelida a viver uma existência marcada pela brutalidade.
Mas então comecei a não entender nada deste maldito universo. A não topar coisa nenhuma neste bordel de mundo. A não enxergar népias nesta porcaria de sociedade humana. O Estabanado, com os fetiches, acabava de conquistar Niangbo! É verdade ou não é verdade essa porcaria dos grigris? Quem me pode responder? Onde ir buscar a resposta? A nenhures. Por isso se calhar é verdade, o grigri... ou talvez seja falso, uma aldrabice, um embuste de todo o tamanho e de todo o comprimento da África. A faforo (eu do meu pai)!
73/198 – Costa do Marfim
December 14, 2012
المرة الأولى التي أقرأ فيها لاحمدو كوروما و الذي يكتب رواية على لسان طفل في الثامنة أو ربما العاشرة فالأم و الجدة يختلفان حول سنّه. الله يفعل ما يشاء و الرب غير ملزم بإقامة العدل في كل مكان على الأرض. تلك هي الجملة التمهيدية و التي يمكن اعتبارها لزمة البطل إذ تتردد كثيراً كما هو الحال بالنسبة للشتائم التي لم أكن بحاجة لإحصائها حتى أشعر أنني قرأتها مايزيد عن المئة مرة - بدون مبالغة -. في المقابل ستغدو الأفكار و الأمثال الأفريقية بمثابة الصلح الذي لا يمكن رفضه. التشبيهات أيضاً في منتهى الغرابة و الفظاعة - الفظاعة هنا إيجابية جداً - فالعذرية تعني البراءة و الموت يرادفه الغليون المكسور.
الرواية دامية جداً و متوحشة إلى أبعد حدّ، كل صفحة عبارة عن صفعة على وجه الإنسان الذي يدّعي الحضارة، كل صفحة عبارة عن وخزة لا نهائية للضمير الحي ّ أو حتى نصف الحيّ. الرواية تتحدث عن أفريقيا السوداء ، أفريقيا الجهل و المرض و الخرافة و الماس الذي سينتهي به الأمر إلى متاجر تيفاني دون المرور بفم أفريقي على الأرجح. يضطر الطفل / البطل إلى السفر نحو ليبيريا الماخور الصغير مقارنة ببلده الأم سيراليون الماخور المربع. في ليبيريا هناك حرب قبلية، عنصرية مقيتة بين السود أنفسهم هذه المرة. يتم نهبه للدرجة القصوى و أعني بذلك حتى سرواله الداخلي في أول نقطة تفتيش لعصابة صغيرة ليجد نفسه ملتحقاً بأحد معسكرات الحرب ليغدو جندياً برتية ملازم يحمل كلاشنكوف و يملك الحرية لإطلاق النار متى شاء و على من يشاء. الآخر بدافع السن المتأخر و الحكمة التي تأتي رغماً عنّا أحياناً ينتحل شخصية الساحر و صانع التمائم و التعويذات التي تجعل من الرصاص ماء ! هناك المخدرات و الماس الذي يسرقه الأجانب و هناك الدين الذي يقاتل باسمه الجميع و دائماً هناك الخرافات و الدجل. الكاتب سيجعل الطفل في بحثه عن خالته يمر بالمعسكرات الأربع و رجال الحرب في ليبيريا، نجدهم يتقاسمون الوحشية و يتفاوتون في ذلك بنسب غير معقولة. الأول يعتمد جيشه بالكامل على الأطفال الذين يلقى إليهم بعضٌ من الحشيش و الثاني يزعم أن الرب أوكل إليه مهمة الدفاع عن ليبيريا فلا يتورع أن يقتل الأطفال و الرضّع إن لزم الأمر بينما رجل الحرب الثالث باسم الوطنية قام بقطع الأيدي حتى لا ينتخب الزنوج ! الرابع حتى يضمن الولاء الكامل يشترط على جنوده أن يقتلوا آبائهم و أمهاتهم حتى يكون عالمهم الأوحد. الرواية جميلة جداً و مزعجة على الصعيد النفسي و قد قمت بشراء روايته المنة قبل أن أنتهي من هذه الرواية.
توصية ؟ طبعاً توصية و نص.
June 12, 2016
This book tells the story of a young boy, Birahima. He's grown up in Cote D'Ivoire, and when his mother dies, it's decided that he'll go and live with his aunt in Liberia. However, somewhere along the way, Birahima finds himself caught up in tribal warfare, and the only way to survive is to become a child soldier.
I have really mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, it shows a horrifying reality for many children growing up in western Africa in the 1990s. The narrative is incredibly frank and doesn't pull any punches about the fact that Birahima was shooting people and doing drugs when he should have still been in primary school, and it's explicit (though he doesn't phrase it as such) that he was sexually abused by a much older woman and about the fact that pre-teen girls had to prostitute themselves to survive. It's a book that's full of violence and swearing and horrific things. And yet somehow it still manages to be funny at fairly regular intervals??
On the other hand, Birahima is a REALLY annoying narrator. The writing style actually reminded me a lot of The Catcher in the Rye - it's basically a stream of consciousness, except that rather than following the character over several days, it's Birahima telling his story to a family member over the course of several days. Much like Holden Caulfield, he has a clearly defined set of phrases and words that he repeats over and over again. Much like Holden Caulfield, he interrupts himself CONSTANTLY (in Birahima's case, it's to define words that totally don't need defining).
So I'm glad I read this, because it was an eye-opening look at Liberian history. But at the same time, I kind of wish I hadn't read it, because Birahima drove me absolutely nuts, and I kind of wanted to reach into the book and just SHAKE SOME SENSE INTO HIM.
Given the violence, sexual abuse, and almost constant swearing and slurs, I definitely wouldn't consider it a young adult book, despite the age of the protagonist.
I have really mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, it shows a horrifying reality for many children growing up in western Africa in the 1990s. The narrative is incredibly frank and doesn't pull any punches about the fact that Birahima was shooting people and doing drugs when he should have still been in primary school, and it's explicit (though he doesn't phrase it as such) that he was sexually abused by a much older woman and about the fact that pre-teen girls had to prostitute themselves to survive. It's a book that's full of violence and swearing and horrific things. And yet somehow it still manages to be funny at fairly regular intervals??
On the other hand, Birahima is a REALLY annoying narrator. The writing style actually reminded me a lot of The Catcher in the Rye - it's basically a stream of consciousness, except that rather than following the character over several days, it's Birahima telling his story to a family member over the course of several days. Much like Holden Caulfield, he has a clearly defined set of phrases and words that he repeats over and over again. Much like Holden Caulfield, he interrupts himself CONSTANTLY (in Birahima's case, it's to define words that totally don't need defining).
So I'm glad I read this, because it was an eye-opening look at Liberian history. But at the same time, I kind of wish I hadn't read it, because Birahima drove me absolutely nuts, and I kind of wanted to reach into the book and just SHAKE SOME SENSE INTO HIM.
Given the violence, sexual abuse, and almost constant swearing and slurs, I definitely wouldn't consider it a young adult book, despite the age of the protagonist.
December 26, 2012
عليكَ أن تعلم قبل أن تقرأ هذا الكتاب،
بأنك ستدخل عالماً جديداً تماماً..
عالم الزنوج، والتمائم، والحروب، والعصابات
عالم الجنود-الأطفال، والجوع، والقتل، والهجرة
عالمٌ لم تعهده في حلمٍ أسود
أو حتى، في قدرٍ مشؤوم...!
"الله ليس مرغماً علئ إقامة العدل في كافة أفعاله على هذه الأرض.! فالله يفعل ما يشاء"
هذا هو العنوان الذي اختاره ابراهيما، "ابن الشارع عديم الخوف والوازع، الطفل-الجندي!" عندما كتب مذكرات رحلته هذه
عبر ليبيريا المنحوسة إلى سيراليون التي لا تقل عنها نحساً.! وتجارب الانقلابات التي كانت تودي بحياة الأطفال-الجنود!
تجارب الجشع البشري لقادة العصابات للاستيلاء على مناجم الماس والطعام.!
تجارب العقائد المروعة كأكل لحوم البشر وقلوبهم لاكتساب القسوة والبطش.!
هذا الكتاب، بمحضه
تجربة فريدة ومرعبة وقاسية
في تلك القارة القصيّة عن أعين العالم..
وهذا الكاتب "أحمدو كوروهما"،
كيف لم أقرأ له قبلاً.؟!
بأنك ستدخل عالماً جديداً تماماً..
عالم الزنوج، والتمائم، والحروب، والعصابات
عالم الجنود-الأطفال، والجوع، والقتل، والهجرة
عالمٌ لم تعهده في حلمٍ أسود
أو حتى، في قدرٍ مشؤوم...!
"الله ليس مرغماً علئ إقامة العدل في كافة أفعاله على هذه الأرض.! فالله يفعل ما يشاء"
هذا هو العنوان الذي اختاره ابراهيما، "ابن الشارع عديم الخوف والوازع، الطفل-الجندي!" عندما كتب مذكرات رحلته هذه
عبر ليبيريا المنحوسة إلى سيراليون التي لا تقل عنها نحساً.! وتجارب الانقلابات التي كانت تودي بحياة الأطفال-الجنود!
تجارب الجشع البشري لقادة العصابات للاستيلاء على مناجم الماس والطعام.!
تجارب العقائد المروعة كأكل لحوم البشر وقلوبهم لاكتساب القسوة والبطش.!
هذا الكتاب، بمحضه
تجربة فريدة ومرعبة وقاسية
في تلك القارة القصيّة عن أعين العالم..
وهذا الكاتب "أحمدو كوروهما"،
كيف لم أقرأ له قبلاً.؟!
February 20, 2023
I loved this. It's a beautiful and moving story that still managed to have funny bits even when desribing gruesome events like guerilla fighting and massacres. Written gracefully, the author succeeds in telling the story from the childlike perspective of Birahima, the child soldier. No matter their circumstances, you'd still remember these were children... innocent children. It didn't feel as if a grown up was trying too hard to imitate a child's view of the world. I really enjoyed it! Bravo to the translator too!👏🏾
August 18, 2015
'Allah is not obliged to be fair about all the things he does here on earth.'
These are the words of the child soldier or as he calls himself a "small soldier" Birahima, and thus begins and ends Ivorian writer Ahmadou Kourouma's award winning novel. Despite a dismal sounding assessment of existence, this novel is filled with a huge share of humor, sarcasm, and tongue in cheek insults.
The genius of this novel is the author was able to combine the gruesome with the humorous and make it all believable and tolerable at the same time. When I first read about this novel the reviews said it had quite a few brutal scenes since afterall it was a fictionalized account of one of Africa's most horrific conflicts, the Liberian Civil War. It so happens that it wasn't as bad as I expected it to be, but I must caution the few references and scenes of atrocities and killings are harsh, the worse being the ghoulish description of what happened to the brutish president of Liberia Samuel Doe. Birahima softens the horrors by his wry and devil may care humor. He's only ten but has already been through so much.
Even though Birahima's family is well-to-do by his country's standards life has not been easy for him from the start. His father dies young, so Birahima never quite knew him. His mother is a cripple, the result of a curse being put on her. As a toddler he loves his mom and is a pain in the neck for her. Once a great beauty, a curse is put on her by the mother of a man she refused to marry. She is left crawling around on her "arse" as Birahima expresses it like a crab with one leg jutting out. But outside of anyone else he is closest to his mom.
Once Birahima's mother dies like a dog as he expresses it, refusing to go to school and rebelling into becoming a street kid, he decides to leave his village in the Ivory Coast accompanied by a con man grigriman
(see grigri here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gris-gr...
hustler named Yacouba. They set out together to look for Birahima's missing aunt Mahan. Birahima has plans to live with her since he is now an orphan, but their plans go awry when the convoy they are passengers in is detained, broken up, and looted by rebels on the Liberian border. Thus begins Birahima's long and painful odyssey navigating the Liberian Civil War, and he does live to tell his tale.
Allah is Not Obliged is not a novel I would usually read. During the first few pages I almost flung it aside with disgust because Birahima comes on the scene spewing all kinds of profanity including the word "nigger". After the first chapter he does tone down the language.
My biggest criticism is that the voice of the story that is told entirely in Birahima's words is on a far advanced level, I think, for a ten year old who has dropped out of school. He understands the ins and outs and the history of West African politics and colonialism. But perhaps his advanced voice is plausible since it is possible he was a primary school drop-out because he was smart beyond his years. Possibly... Birahima also makes the extra effort to explain the definitions of difficult English, French, and words native to certain West African languages. He keeps several dictionaries handy as he relates his story.
For all its flaws and excesses I think Allah is Not Obliged is quite an interesting book. Fictional and non-fictional characters occupy this story. There's never a dull moment.
These are the words of the child soldier or as he calls himself a "small soldier" Birahima, and thus begins and ends Ivorian writer Ahmadou Kourouma's award winning novel. Despite a dismal sounding assessment of existence, this novel is filled with a huge share of humor, sarcasm, and tongue in cheek insults.
The genius of this novel is the author was able to combine the gruesome with the humorous and make it all believable and tolerable at the same time. When I first read about this novel the reviews said it had quite a few brutal scenes since afterall it was a fictionalized account of one of Africa's most horrific conflicts, the Liberian Civil War. It so happens that it wasn't as bad as I expected it to be, but I must caution the few references and scenes of atrocities and killings are harsh, the worse being the ghoulish description of what happened to the brutish president of Liberia Samuel Doe. Birahima softens the horrors by his wry and devil may care humor. He's only ten but has already been through so much.
Even though Birahima's family is well-to-do by his country's standards life has not been easy for him from the start. His father dies young, so Birahima never quite knew him. His mother is a cripple, the result of a curse being put on her. As a toddler he loves his mom and is a pain in the neck for her. Once a great beauty, a curse is put on her by the mother of a man she refused to marry. She is left crawling around on her "arse" as Birahima expresses it like a crab with one leg jutting out. But outside of anyone else he is closest to his mom.
Once Birahima's mother dies like a dog as he expresses it, refusing to go to school and rebelling into becoming a street kid, he decides to leave his village in the Ivory Coast accompanied by a con man grigriman
(see grigri here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gris-gr...
hustler named Yacouba. They set out together to look for Birahima's missing aunt Mahan. Birahima has plans to live with her since he is now an orphan, but their plans go awry when the convoy they are passengers in is detained, broken up, and looted by rebels on the Liberian border. Thus begins Birahima's long and painful odyssey navigating the Liberian Civil War, and he does live to tell his tale.
Allah is Not Obliged is not a novel I would usually read. During the first few pages I almost flung it aside with disgust because Birahima comes on the scene spewing all kinds of profanity including the word "nigger". After the first chapter he does tone down the language.
My biggest criticism is that the voice of the story that is told entirely in Birahima's words is on a far advanced level, I think, for a ten year old who has dropped out of school. He understands the ins and outs and the history of West African politics and colonialism. But perhaps his advanced voice is plausible since it is possible he was a primary school drop-out because he was smart beyond his years. Possibly... Birahima also makes the extra effort to explain the definitions of difficult English, French, and words native to certain West African languages. He keeps several dictionaries handy as he relates his story.
For all its flaws and excesses I think Allah is Not Obliged is quite an interesting book. Fictional and non-fictional characters occupy this story. There's never a dull moment.
February 8, 2012
"الله ليس مرغما على إقامة العدل في كافة أفعاله على هذه الأرض"
هكذا يبدأ الصبي-المجند إبراهيما قصته المفزعة في حقيقتها عن ماخور الحرب في غرب أفريقيا .. ماخور ينز قيحا وصديدا ويعكس مدى قبح الإنسان وشرّه إذا لم يتم ترويضه بالأخلاق والعلم .. وكالعادة فإن الشياطين يلزمها أن تحمل المصاحف والأناجيل والتمائم لتقنع الحمقى المساكين -وما أكثرهم- ..
إذا فكرت في الأمر .. فسيكون حسابنا عسيرا عسيرا لأننا لم نتحمل مسؤوليتنا في هذا العالم بعد .. حمل المآسي يزداد كلّما تأخرنا .. كيف سننجو ؟! لا أدري !
أذكركم طبعا بـ "مذكرات صبي مجند" لإشمائيل بيه عن ذات الماخور في سيراليون.
كما أقول : "إذا كانت أفريقيا قارة لا يحكمها سوى الأنبياء أو الأغبياء، فلنكن أنبياء إذن ! .. حان الوقت لأمنا هذه التي تزحف على إليتها لأن إحدى ساقيها مبتورة بسبب الصديد والعفن والأخرى معاقة، حان الوقت لأمنا أن ترتاح !"
مهند حاج
8.2.2012
هكذا يبدأ الصبي-المجند إبراهيما قصته المفزعة في حقيقتها عن ماخور الحرب في غرب أفريقيا .. ماخور ينز قيحا وصديدا ويعكس مدى قبح الإنسان وشرّه إذا لم يتم ترويضه بالأخلاق والعلم .. وكالعادة فإن الشياطين يلزمها أن تحمل المصاحف والأناجيل والتمائم لتقنع الحمقى المساكين -وما أكثرهم- ..
إذا فكرت في الأمر .. فسيكون حسابنا عسيرا عسيرا لأننا لم نتحمل مسؤوليتنا في هذا العالم بعد .. حمل المآسي يزداد كلّما تأخرنا .. كيف سننجو ؟! لا أدري !
أذكركم طبعا بـ "مذكرات صبي مجند" لإشمائيل بيه عن ذات الماخور في سيراليون.
كما أقول : "إذا كانت أفريقيا قارة لا يحكمها سوى الأنبياء أو الأغبياء، فلنكن أنبياء إذن ! .. حان الوقت لأمنا هذه التي تزحف على إليتها لأن إحدى ساقيها مبتورة بسبب الصديد والعفن والأخرى معاقة، حان الوقت لأمنا أن ترتاح !"
مهند حاج
8.2.2012
January 23, 2013
This is a horrific story. The violence is told in a matter of fact way with no apologies and little sympathy.
But you cannot ignore the fact that this book is simply not well written, on account of it being written by a 10 year old that may actually be 11...
The story is told by this supposed child "on account that I'm only a kid" he makes a few mistakes and uses a dictionary, a lot. One minute he is explaining what single file is and pooh pooh pee peeing and then he is talking about indigenes and their entrenched camp and recording politic events with ease. It's simply inconsistent.
There are parts that are funny, at times the book is witty and insensitive and other times sarcastic and cynical, ingredients I usually appreciate. But this is one for the recycling bin. In comparison to Ishmael Beah's A Long Way Gone this book is a bit shite and a big let down.
But you cannot ignore the fact that this book is simply not well written, on account of it being written by a 10 year old that may actually be 11...
The story is told by this supposed child "on account that I'm only a kid" he makes a few mistakes and uses a dictionary, a lot. One minute he is explaining what single file is and pooh pooh pee peeing and then he is talking about indigenes and their entrenched camp and recording politic events with ease. It's simply inconsistent.
There are parts that are funny, at times the book is witty and insensitive and other times sarcastic and cynical, ingredients I usually appreciate. But this is one for the recycling bin. In comparison to Ishmael Beah's A Long Way Gone this book is a bit shite and a big let down.
June 2, 2019
Књига писца из Обале Слоноваче која, из перспективе малолетног детета-ратника говори о страхотама ратова у Западној Африци. Не могу да кажем да је ово књижевно ремек-дело, али ми је ипак пријало, понешто човек и сазна о (нама) егзотичним деловима света. Додуше, на моменте ми је заиста деловало "натегнуто" и написано како одрасли замишљају да би дете причало/размишљало. Но, у сваком случају, рекао бих да је битно да овакве књиге постоје и, још више да се преводе...
August 9, 2020
ابراهيما الصغير، سارد الحكايات العظيم، أطلعتني على جانب من افريقيا سيبقى محفورًا في ذاكرتي ووجداني. لله الأمر وحده من قبل ومن بعد.
May 31, 2021
Wow! Now this is an unique novel with a lot to be said about it.
Not for its topic - in the 2000s, we got a lot of literature about child soldiers, sometimes memoirs from former child soldiers themselves. If you ever read any of those books, you will immediately see what makes Allah is Not Obliged so unique. It is written in an unique first person narration, from our protagonist Birahima, who does not speak French very well and as such is constantly nabbing words from dictionaries.
Right at the beginning, this book has one of the best intros ever:
Birahima's narration does not at all feel like any typical novel - mostly because it genuinely feels as if written by a child. This is not child-like writing at all, it is an adult that knows his writing damn well perfectly imitating a child's way of writing. There's never any extensive dialogue or lyrical descriptions of anything, it genuinely feels like Birahima is talking to you directly:
This first-person narration is also just incredible, there's so many stylistics tricks here that immediately make it infinitely memorable. See, Birahima doesn't know French all that well, so he's constantly explaining the definitions of words to you:
And so on. Sometimes he even repeats these definitions (while fully acknowledging it), and on rare occasions they allow for hysterical definitions by Birahima, like this one:
Speaking of repetition, this happens a lot. Birahima has an habit of saying "[thing] was X, really X" and other verbal tics to that effect. It's great, it works great for his characterization. There's far more extreme cases of repetition, where Birahima will describe two different scenes in basically the same way, per example this Prince Johnson raid followed by an ECOMOG raid:
Just one or two pages later:
This was hysterical to me, I unironically broke out in laughter. Of course, it has a satirical element: the fact that the violence doesn't change, it's the same shit repeated over and over again.
There are many other funny idiosyncrasies in the narrative style of this book, and it's what makes it such a joy to read, it quickly became one of my favorite narrations in any book ever, it's that good. But I will let you find those out for yourself.
The tone of the book, too, is very different from most child-soldier narratives, which focus on atrocities, the misery of it, etc, and for good reason, but Allah Is Not Obliged is almost a black comedy coming-of-age story. We see Birahima grow up amidst the war while looking for his aunt, and in the process he both hardens himself, learns about West African history and politics, and questions his traditional beliefs.
The book then, is a coming-of-age story and a black comedy - it is also written as a boy's adventure, ironically considering its grim content. It does not at all shy away from the gruesome reality of the West African civil wars, but it cheekily portrays this as a boy's own adventure, as Birahima going to his aunt cause he has nowhere else left, and he is always excited to join the child-soldiers to fuck some people up. He gives funeral orations and doesn't when he doesn't care about the dead, etc.
All in all, very unique book, I loved it and I will be trying to get my hands on more of Ahmadou Kourouma's books, because while they are readily available in French, in English it's another story. This one however is easy to get, and go read it, it's great and it's short!
Not for its topic - in the 2000s, we got a lot of literature about child soldiers, sometimes memoirs from former child soldiers themselves. If you ever read any of those books, you will immediately see what makes Allah is Not Obliged so unique. It is written in an unique first person narration, from our protagonist Birahima, who does not speak French very well and as such is constantly nabbing words from dictionaries.
Right at the beginning, this book has one of the best intros ever:
The full, final and completely complete title of my bullshit story is: Allah is not obliged to be fair about all the things he does here on earth. Okay. Right. I better start explaining some stuff.
First off, Number one … My name is Birahima and I’m a little nigger. Not ’cos I’m black and I’m a kid. I’m a little nigger because I can’t talk French for shit. That’s how things are. You might be a grown-up, or old, you might be Arab, or Chinese, or white, or Russian—or even American—if you talk bad French, it’s called parler petit nègre—little nigger talking—so that makes you a little nigger too. That’s the rules of French for you.
Birahima's narration does not at all feel like any typical novel - mostly because it genuinely feels as if written by a child. This is not child-like writing at all, it is an adult that knows his writing damn well perfectly imitating a child's way of writing. There's never any extensive dialogue or lyrical descriptions of anything, it genuinely feels like Birahima is talking to you directly:
There was a second, a minute, of silence before the storm. And then the whole forest all around us started spitting, the tat-tat-tat tat-tat-tat tat-tat-tat of AK-47s. So when the tattat-tat of the kalashes started up, the birds in the forest could tell something wasn’t right, so they all took off and flew away towards more peaceful skies. The AK-47 tat-tat-tat sprays all over the motorbike and the guys on the motorbike, the driver and the other guy who was all faro on the back with his own kalash. (‘Faro’ isn’t in the Petit Robert, but it’s in the Glossary and it means ‘showing off’.) So now the driver and the guy acting all faro were both dead. Absolutely, one hundred percent dead. But there’s still AK-47s going tat-tat-tat-ing! tat-tat-tating! And you could already see all the destruction all over the road—the burning motorbike and bodies all AK-47ed and all the blood, lots and lots of blood, the blood just never got tired of flowing. Faforo! All this just kept happening and happening, the sinister tat-tat-tat music kept going (‘Sinister’ means ‘serious, scary, terrifying’).
This first-person narration is also just incredible, there's so many stylistics tricks here that immediately make it infinitely memorable. See, Birahima doesn't know French all that well, so he's constantly explaining the definitions of words to you:
He was a fabulist. (According to my Larousse, a ‘fabulist’ is someone who makes up stories that are total lies.)
(According to my Larousse, an ‘ulcer’ is ‘an inflammatory and often suppurating lesion on the skin or an internal mucous surface resulting in necrosis of tissue’).
And so on. Sometimes he even repeats these definitions (while fully acknowledging it), and on rare occasions they allow for hysterical definitions by Birahima, like this one:
The CDEAO asked Nigeria to do humanitarian peacekeeping. (‘Humanitarian peacekeeping’ is when one country is allowed to send soldiers into another country to kill innocent victims in their own country, in their own villages, in their own huts, sitting on their own mats.)
Speaking of repetition, this happens a lot. Birahima has an habit of saying "[thing] was X, really X" and other verbal tics to that effect. It's great, it works great for his characterization. There's far more extreme cases of repetition, where Birahima will describe two different scenes in basically the same way, per example this Prince Johnson raid followed by an ECOMOG raid:
He started out by attacking one of the NPFL frontier posts so that he could get some duties and taxes for himself, some of the customs duties of independent Liberia. Prince Johnson used maximum force; he sent in several waves of fighters, grenade attacks, mortars, shells. The attack lasted so many days that there was even time to alert the ECOMOG peacekeeping forces, there was even time for them to get there. They arrived with even more maximum forces. The peacekeeping forces didn’t keep the peace, they didn’t take any unnecessary risks. (I’ll explain the word ‘risk’ for Black Nigger African Natives: it means ‘the possibility of suffering harm or loss’.) They weren’t bothered about details, they just fired at random, they fired shells at the people doing the attacking and at the people being attacked. They bombed right into the crowd, into the chaos. In a single day they produced loads of innocent victims, more victims than a whole week of the rival factions just fighting with each other. When the uproar died down, the peacekeeping force picked up the wounded. The wounded were evacuated to field hospitals run by ECOMOG. They drew up a report about the area. That was their role, their mission. They ascertained that it was Johnson’s territory. He had the upper hand. Therefore Johnson got to take advantage of the customs post. Under their surveillance.
Just one or two pages later:
There was still the problem of secure and steady profits, and it had to be solved. Even grigrimen like Yacouba were starting to complain; they hadn’t got enough to eat and they weren’t being paid for the grigris they made. This time, Johnson attacked a gold- and diamond-mining town controlled by ULIMO, who were supporters of Samuel Doe. In his usual way—a dog never gives up his shameless habits—Prince Johnson used maximum force. Grenades and mortars and wave after wave of soldiers. The attackers resisted heroically. There was lots of blood and lots of people dead. The battle lasted several days. The attack lasted so many days that there was even time to alert the ECOMOG peacekeeping forces, there was even time for them to get there. The peacekeeping forces didn’t keep the peace, they didn’t take any unnecessary risks. They weren’t bothered about details, they just fired shells at random, they fired shells at the people doing the attacking and at the people being attacked. They bombed every part of the town, the natives’ quarter, full of Black Nigger African Natives, and the miners’ quarter. When everything was demolished, when no one was moving any more, not the attackers or the attacked, the peacekeeping forces stopped massacring. They picked up the wounded. The wounded were evacuated to their field hospitals. They drew up a report about the status of forces on the ground. That was their role, their mission, their duty. They ascertained that it was Johnson’s territory. Therefore Johnson was awarded control of the town and took over running the mines.
This was hysterical to me, I unironically broke out in laughter. Of course, it has a satirical element: the fact that the violence doesn't change, it's the same shit repeated over and over again.
There are many other funny idiosyncrasies in the narrative style of this book, and it's what makes it such a joy to read, it quickly became one of my favorite narrations in any book ever, it's that good. But I will let you find those out for yourself.
The tone of the book, too, is very different from most child-soldier narratives, which focus on atrocities, the misery of it, etc, and for good reason, but Allah Is Not Obliged is almost a black comedy coming-of-age story. We see Birahima grow up amidst the war while looking for his aunt, and in the process he both hardens himself, learns about West African history and politics, and questions his traditional beliefs.
The book then, is a coming-of-age story and a black comedy - it is also written as a boy's adventure, ironically considering its grim content. It does not at all shy away from the gruesome reality of the West African civil wars, but it cheekily portrays this as a boy's own adventure, as Birahima going to his aunt cause he has nowhere else left, and he is always excited to join the child-soldiers to fuck some people up. He gives funeral orations and doesn't when he doesn't care about the dead, etc.
All in all, very unique book, I loved it and I will be trying to get my hands on more of Ahmadou Kourouma's books, because while they are readily available in French, in English it's another story. This one however is easy to get, and go read it, it's great and it's short!
August 6, 2017
As a rule I avoid books about war or calamity written from the perspective of child protagonists, in part because this viewpoint leads to oversimplification of complex events and in part because such books are almost always sentimental or precious. I chose this book, told from the perspective of a preteen boy who becomes a child soldier, both for the West African setting (it is set in Ivory Coast, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, but the largest chunk takes place in Liberia, so I'm using it as my challenge book for that country) and for the authentic, conversational, foul-mouthed and entirely unsentimental voice. This is the book’s strongest quality, one that’s even more impressive given that this is a translation (you’d never know it without being told; I’d love to be able to sample the French original and see how it compares). Here’s a taste:
“The dead child-soldier was called Kid, Captain Kid. Now and again in his beautiful song, Colonel Papa le Bon chanted ‘Captain Kid’ and the whole cortege howled after him ‘Kid, Kid’. You should have heard it. They sounded like a bunch of retards.”
“The same goes for me. I don’t have to talk, I’m not obliged to tell my dog’s-life-story, wading through dictionary after dictionary. I’m fed up talking, so I’m going to stop for today. You can all fuck off!”
The dictionaries are an odd conceit: our narrator, Birahima, uses four dictionaries to look up French and African words and explain them as he goes. Occasionally these “explanations” are in the form of sardonic jabs (“‘Humanitarian peacekeeping’ is when one country is allowed to send soldiers into another country to kill innocent victims in their own country, in their own villages, in their own huts, sitting on their own mats.”), but most of the time he’s simply defining words most readers will already know (“Every morning he went to the temple and officiated. ‘Officiate’ is a big word that means ‘to conduct a religious ceremony’, that’s what it says in my Larousse.”).
One might wonder how Birahima comes to use these words at all if he doesn’t know them (perhaps the entire conceit is meant to highlight the way African fiction tends to explain itself to a foreign audience, by turning the tables on us), but that question pales beside the fact that well before the halfway point, Birahima virtually abandons his own story and never fully returns to it. Instead, most of the second half the book is taken up by a history lesson on the warfare in Liberia and Sierra Leone, interspersed with anecdotes about the backstories of other child soldiers and about various larger-than-life men and women who take part in the wars. Unfortunately, we don’t see Birahima interact with these other characters; the stories he tells about his friends end with their becoming child soldiers, and in a way his own does too, even though that occurs early in the book. We never do get to read about the day-to-day lives of child soldiers or how they interact with one another.
One could rationalize that a real child soldier would be reluctant to tell his story, and would talk about other things instead, and maybe that's what Kourouma was trying to accomplish, though I'm not convinced a real child soldier would give us dozens of pages of history lessons either. Regardless, I picked up this novel hoping to read a story, and got a book that started out promisingly but grew increasingly disjointed and never did tell that story. Two and a half stars.
“The dead child-soldier was called Kid, Captain Kid. Now and again in his beautiful song, Colonel Papa le Bon chanted ‘Captain Kid’ and the whole cortege howled after him ‘Kid, Kid’. You should have heard it. They sounded like a bunch of retards.”
“The same goes for me. I don’t have to talk, I’m not obliged to tell my dog’s-life-story, wading through dictionary after dictionary. I’m fed up talking, so I’m going to stop for today. You can all fuck off!”
The dictionaries are an odd conceit: our narrator, Birahima, uses four dictionaries to look up French and African words and explain them as he goes. Occasionally these “explanations” are in the form of sardonic jabs (“‘Humanitarian peacekeeping’ is when one country is allowed to send soldiers into another country to kill innocent victims in their own country, in their own villages, in their own huts, sitting on their own mats.”), but most of the time he’s simply defining words most readers will already know (“Every morning he went to the temple and officiated. ‘Officiate’ is a big word that means ‘to conduct a religious ceremony’, that’s what it says in my Larousse.”).
One might wonder how Birahima comes to use these words at all if he doesn’t know them (perhaps the entire conceit is meant to highlight the way African fiction tends to explain itself to a foreign audience, by turning the tables on us), but that question pales beside the fact that well before the halfway point, Birahima virtually abandons his own story and never fully returns to it. Instead, most of the second half the book is taken up by a history lesson on the warfare in Liberia and Sierra Leone, interspersed with anecdotes about the backstories of other child soldiers and about various larger-than-life men and women who take part in the wars. Unfortunately, we don’t see Birahima interact with these other characters; the stories he tells about his friends end with their becoming child soldiers, and in a way his own does too, even though that occurs early in the book. We never do get to read about the day-to-day lives of child soldiers or how they interact with one another.
One could rationalize that a real child soldier would be reluctant to tell his story, and would talk about other things instead, and maybe that's what Kourouma was trying to accomplish, though I'm not convinced a real child soldier would give us dozens of pages of history lessons either. Regardless, I picked up this novel hoping to read a story, and got a book that started out promisingly but grew increasingly disjointed and never did tell that story. Two and a half stars.
February 27, 2022
relief, my only feeling right now, books for school suck expect when they're classic but don't why but we read only two little classic (and not from french authors which is sad bc it's still a french course) in the past 4 years.... :,(
July 8, 2011
This is like Pere Ubu traipsing through the jungles of West Africa seeking riches: the ribald and absurdist journey of a ten year old hired gun and his bullshit-talking, witch doctor guardian, both surviving their way through Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast and Liberia during their most violent years. Unlikely captures and escapes propel the narrator and his cohort from one camp of fighters to another and from one key moment of the wars to the next. Their movements give Kourouma the opportunity to tell the history of the wars that ravaged West Africa at the end of the twentieth century, though this strains the believability of his ten year old narrator--whose own needs and concerns disappear for many pages at a time, giving way to Kourouma's caustic history:
"The Black Nigger Natives worked as hard as wild beasts. The creoles got all the jobs as civil servants in the government and managers of the commercial businesses. And the colonial English colonists and the thieving double-crossing Lebanese pocketed all the money.";
"Foday Sankoh isn't duped by the democracy game. No sir. He doesn't want anything to do with any of it. He doesn't want a National Conference, he doesn't want free and fair elections. He doesn't want anything. He controls the part of the country with diamonds; he controls the useful part of Sierra Leone. He doesn't give a fuck."
"Allah is Not Obliged" moves quickly and unfolds like an oral history with numerous refrains and repetitions which are, in this case, largely profane. Kourouma seeks to explain the precociousness of his narrator as the result of a gift of numerous dictionaries from a deceased translator and these produce a much overused trope:
"Nobody can be obliged to do anything because no one's got the time to go round putting rebel fighters on trial for perjury in the fucked-up four-star chaos of tribal wars in Liberia ('perjury', according to my Larousse, means 'the deliberate, willful giving of false testimony under oath')."
These parenthetical definitions (which accompany the initial arrival of nearly 50% of larger words) are rather annoying and while Kourouma set himself up to underscore the inherent political bias of different dictionaries (since Birahima possesses at least four), he doesn't actually succeed on this mission. The choice of dictionary always seems random and unrevealing; so the one potentially interesting aspect of reminding his readers what words mean is lost.
I've avoided reading some of the denser histories of the conflict that serves as the context of this book, so I'm actually grateful to Kourouma's history and I enjoyed the pure ridiculousness of the narrator and his friends. The book's dark humor gives it a certain charm as do the funeral orations delivered by Birahima for his tiny dead friends.
It's hard for me not to like a book that treats the subject of child soldiers with *none* of the sentimentality and manipulation that the subject has received from other quarters. A small passage that seems to contain a bit of Kourouma's contempt for the plaintive (and I would argue, totally insincere) hand-wringing about young killers:
"The dead child-soldier was called Kid, Captain Kid. Now and again in his beautiful song, Colonel Papa le Bon chanted 'Captain Kid' and the whole cortege howled after him 'Kid, Kid'. You should have heard it. They sounded like a bunch of retards."
"The Black Nigger Natives worked as hard as wild beasts. The creoles got all the jobs as civil servants in the government and managers of the commercial businesses. And the colonial English colonists and the thieving double-crossing Lebanese pocketed all the money.";
"Foday Sankoh isn't duped by the democracy game. No sir. He doesn't want anything to do with any of it. He doesn't want a National Conference, he doesn't want free and fair elections. He doesn't want anything. He controls the part of the country with diamonds; he controls the useful part of Sierra Leone. He doesn't give a fuck."
"Allah is Not Obliged" moves quickly and unfolds like an oral history with numerous refrains and repetitions which are, in this case, largely profane. Kourouma seeks to explain the precociousness of his narrator as the result of a gift of numerous dictionaries from a deceased translator and these produce a much overused trope:
"Nobody can be obliged to do anything because no one's got the time to go round putting rebel fighters on trial for perjury in the fucked-up four-star chaos of tribal wars in Liberia ('perjury', according to my Larousse, means 'the deliberate, willful giving of false testimony under oath')."
These parenthetical definitions (which accompany the initial arrival of nearly 50% of larger words) are rather annoying and while Kourouma set himself up to underscore the inherent political bias of different dictionaries (since Birahima possesses at least four), he doesn't actually succeed on this mission. The choice of dictionary always seems random and unrevealing; so the one potentially interesting aspect of reminding his readers what words mean is lost.
I've avoided reading some of the denser histories of the conflict that serves as the context of this book, so I'm actually grateful to Kourouma's history and I enjoyed the pure ridiculousness of the narrator and his friends. The book's dark humor gives it a certain charm as do the funeral orations delivered by Birahima for his tiny dead friends.
It's hard for me not to like a book that treats the subject of child soldiers with *none* of the sentimentality and manipulation that the subject has received from other quarters. A small passage that seems to contain a bit of Kourouma's contempt for the plaintive (and I would argue, totally insincere) hand-wringing about young killers:
"The dead child-soldier was called Kid, Captain Kid. Now and again in his beautiful song, Colonel Papa le Bon chanted 'Captain Kid' and the whole cortege howled after him 'Kid, Kid'. You should have heard it. They sounded like a bunch of retards."
October 20, 2020
Ahmadou Kourouma's Allah is Not Obliged is told from the point of view of ten year old (or he may be twelve, nobody knows) Birahima. When his mother dies, Birahima, it is decided, will go to live with his aunt; but the aunt has problems with her marriage and has gone far, far away. Birahima, therefore, follows in her wake, accompanied by Yacouba, a grigriman, a maker of amulets, a man who is also a crook and a wanted 'money multiplier'. This is the start of a harrowing adventure as Birahima quickly becomes a child-soldier, in one army after another, as civil war rips apart the region.
The first half of this book was memorable. It was shocking, there was pathos and at times an almost folktale-like quality to the writing. The experiences of a child caught in such turbulent, violent times: the repulsiveness of an age which puts drug-addicted, AK-47-toting children at the forefront of its wars. The depravity of so-called leaders, the easy way with which religion is appropriated by those who lack any sense of moral uprightness... All of it comes through shockingly, vividly, in all that Birahima goes through. The characters, from Yacouba the grigriman to Colonel Papa Le Bon, to the other child-soldiers, are haunting.
But in the second half of the book, I felt the focus beginning to change, and not for the better. Birahima's voice, (till then explaining big words with the help of various dictionaries) gets diluted, and the deeply personal voice that made the first half of the book so interesting loses steam. Instead, Kourouma wanders into a detailed description of the politics of the age, explaining the shifting of power, the role played by various political figures and organizations, and so on. Suddenly Birahima doesn't sound at all like a swaggering child (which is how he comes across at first); now he's an adult, an obviously aware, jaded adult, though he still occasionally refers to a dictionary to explain something. His references, by the way, are very random; sometimes he lets pass pretty big words without explaining while at other times very basic words are explained too.
On the whole, an okay book. I really liked the first half, enough to want to give this four stars. But the second half, and its dissonance with the first half, reduced my overall liking of it.
The first half of this book was memorable. It was shocking, there was pathos and at times an almost folktale-like quality to the writing. The experiences of a child caught in such turbulent, violent times: the repulsiveness of an age which puts drug-addicted, AK-47-toting children at the forefront of its wars. The depravity of so-called leaders, the easy way with which religion is appropriated by those who lack any sense of moral uprightness... All of it comes through shockingly, vividly, in all that Birahima goes through. The characters, from Yacouba the grigriman to Colonel Papa Le Bon, to the other child-soldiers, are haunting.
But in the second half of the book, I felt the focus beginning to change, and not for the better. Birahima's voice, (till then explaining big words with the help of various dictionaries) gets diluted, and the deeply personal voice that made the first half of the book so interesting loses steam. Instead, Kourouma wanders into a detailed description of the politics of the age, explaining the shifting of power, the role played by various political figures and organizations, and so on. Suddenly Birahima doesn't sound at all like a swaggering child (which is how he comes across at first); now he's an adult, an obviously aware, jaded adult, though he still occasionally refers to a dictionary to explain something. His references, by the way, are very random; sometimes he lets pass pretty big words without explaining while at other times very basic words are explained too.
On the whole, an okay book. I really liked the first half, enough to want to give this four stars. But the second half, and its dissonance with the first half, reduced my overall liking of it.
May 28, 2020
When you haven't got no father,no mother,no sisters,no aunts,no uncles,when you haven't got nothing at all, the best thing to do is become a child-soldier. Being a child-soldier is for kids who've got fuck all left on earth or Allah's heaven...
For such a short book this was so heavy not surprisingly since it deals with so many heavy and brutal topics. From war,death,rape and ethnic tensions all in their most brutal forms and made worse is that we see it from a child's perspective whose circumstances have forced him into such a position. the author tells this story in a satirical tone which I am not sure if they meant to balance the heavy themes or just to show the futility of war which I think worked quite well.
I really enjoyed it because it reminded me of one of my favorite movies, Beasts of no nation. my only issue was some explanations of the war factions felt like were lifted from a Wikipedia page and were meant to just fill pages, there was also quite a disconnect with the narrator because in the end the story is not really about him but who he meets during this journey.
All in all it was a pretty solid read.
For such a short book this was so heavy not surprisingly since it deals with so many heavy and brutal topics. From war,death,rape and ethnic tensions all in their most brutal forms and made worse is that we see it from a child's perspective whose circumstances have forced him into such a position. the author tells this story in a satirical tone which I am not sure if they meant to balance the heavy themes or just to show the futility of war which I think worked quite well.
I really enjoyed it because it reminded me of one of my favorite movies, Beasts of no nation. my only issue was some explanations of the war factions felt like were lifted from a Wikipedia page and were meant to just fill pages, there was also quite a disconnect with the narrator because in the end the story is not really about him but who he meets during this journey.
All in all it was a pretty solid read.
February 14, 2013
What a book!
A real eye-opener, the book makes you think a lot about the status quo.
I was really frustrated with the way things were in the book, especially with the outright ignorance and violence. However, that did not deter me from finishing it (though I did think about it!), it was a mixture of humour and tragedy that came across as ironic and heartbreaking.
The format can be a bit annoying due to the repetition of descriptions and words, but you get used to it eventually.
The book is reminiscent of Voltaire's Candide and Lord of the Flies.
I would definitely recommend the book, but don't expect rainbows and happily ever afters, as you will be disappointed (or more accurately fairly depressed).
A real eye-opener, the book makes you think a lot about the status quo.
I was really frustrated with the way things were in the book, especially with the outright ignorance and violence. However, that did not deter me from finishing it (though I did think about it!), it was a mixture of humour and tragedy that came across as ironic and heartbreaking.
The format can be a bit annoying due to the repetition of descriptions and words, but you get used to it eventually.
The book is reminiscent of Voltaire's Candide and Lord of the Flies.
I would definitely recommend the book, but don't expect rainbows and happily ever afters, as you will be disappointed (or more accurately fairly depressed).
April 10, 2020
برغم كل أحداثها الرواية لا تخلو من كوميديا سوداء، وفكاهة في أسلوب الكاتب..
ما يزعجك في الرواية الناقوس الذي يذكرك باغتيال الطفولة في كل وقت وحين، أنت لا تريد النسيان ولكن مواجهة الحقيقة الفجة السافرة ليس بالهيّن، بالنسبة لي لم تكن بصراحة قراءة ممتعة، ولكنها قراءة هامة، واستحواذية في آن معا. التسليح واستباحة الروح والدم والإنسانية مقابل البقاء، مقابل العيش، التافه منه والزهيد لا أكثر! في عالم تسوده الجريمة والفوضى والعنصرية والحروب القبلية والجهل وإساة فهم الدين واستغلاله، في عالم كهذا الأطفال كثر ولا طفولة!
في السطور القليلة الأخيرة ما يبعث في النفس الأمل، بعد سنوات من التشرد الدامي، والمسيرة العاثرة، دون الوصول إلى ضالته التي خرجَ في إثرها، يرث الطفل قواميس اللغة وتخطر في باله فكرة "التدوين"...
ما يزعجك في الرواية الناقوس الذي يذكرك باغتيال الطفولة في كل وقت وحين، أنت لا تريد النسيان ولكن مواجهة الحقيقة الفجة السافرة ليس بالهيّن، بالنسبة لي لم تكن بصراحة قراءة ممتعة، ولكنها قراءة هامة، واستحواذية في آن معا. التسليح واستباحة الروح والدم والإنسانية مقابل البقاء، مقابل العيش، التافه منه والزهيد لا أكثر! في عالم تسوده الجريمة والفوضى والعنصرية والحروب القبلية والجهل وإساة فهم الدين واستغلاله، في عالم كهذا الأطفال كثر ولا طفولة!
في السطور القليلة الأخيرة ما يبعث في النفس الأمل، بعد سنوات من التشرد الدامي، والمسيرة العاثرة، دون الوصول إلى ضالته التي خرجَ في إثرها، يرث الطفل قواميس اللغة وتخطر في باله فكرة "التدوين"...
December 23, 2022
Review : Ahmadou Kourouma is een heel vakkundig schrijver die zijn lezers heel geraffineerd de couleur locale laat opsnuiven en ook voldoende achtergrondinformatie geeft voor hij de gruwelen als mitraillettekogels afvuurt.
Birahima is een kind van tien of twaalf. Het juiste getal kan hij zelf niet zeggen, want zijn moeder en zijn grootmoeder hadden daarover uiteenlopende meningen en hemzelf kan het uiteindelijk geen ene moer schelen.. Hij is vroegtijdig van school weggegaan omdat je daar volgens hem en zijn omgeving niets mee bereikt. Ze noemen hem ‘petit nègre’, niet alleen omdat hij klein en zwart is, maar wel omdat hij ‘krom’ Frans praat. Hij is Maliké en dat is het soort inheemse zwarte negers (zoals hij dat zelf noemt) waarvan er veel zijn in Ivoorkust, Guinée, Gambia, Sierra Leone en Senegal. Om zijn leven te vertellen gebruikt hij woordenboeken als Larousse, Petit Robert, Inventaire des particularités lexicales du français en Afrique en tenslotte Harrap’s dictionary, want hij wil tenslotte dat zijn verhaal zowel begrepen wordt door mensen die goed Frans spreken en ook door hen die, zoals hij, ‘petit nègre’ zijn. Zijn verhaal is verre van prettig en begint als hij na de dood van zijn moeder op zoek gaat naar zijn tante die hem moet opvoeden. Die tante is op de vlucht voor haar gewelddadige echtgenoot. Hij reist in twijfelachtig gezelschap van Ivoorkust naar Liberia en Sierra Leone. Omdat hij voortdurend in stammenoorlogen terechtkomt kan hij slechts in leven blijven door kindsoldaat te worden. Euforisch door de hasj staan de kinderen met hun Kalashnikovs in de voorste linies van deze zinloze slachtpartijen en ratelen er lustig op los terwijl de doden als vliegen vallen. Er zijn zoveel redenen om te doden en de ene is al zinlozer dan de andere. Op internationaal vlak wordt er wel flink vergaderd, maar dat maakt niet dat de corruptie er minder om wordt en de rijke landen, die hun afschuw laten blijken door boycots te lanceren en militaire afgezanten te sturen worden er ook beslist niet armer door.
Ahmadou Kourouma is een gedreven verteller en door het jongetje als hoofdpersonage te laten fungeren krijg je een soort hiphopverhaal dat elke verbeelding tart. Gruwelijk mooi.
Birahima is een kind van tien of twaalf. Het juiste getal kan hij zelf niet zeggen, want zijn moeder en zijn grootmoeder hadden daarover uiteenlopende meningen en hemzelf kan het uiteindelijk geen ene moer schelen.. Hij is vroegtijdig van school weggegaan omdat je daar volgens hem en zijn omgeving niets mee bereikt. Ze noemen hem ‘petit nègre’, niet alleen omdat hij klein en zwart is, maar wel omdat hij ‘krom’ Frans praat. Hij is Maliké en dat is het soort inheemse zwarte negers (zoals hij dat zelf noemt) waarvan er veel zijn in Ivoorkust, Guinée, Gambia, Sierra Leone en Senegal. Om zijn leven te vertellen gebruikt hij woordenboeken als Larousse, Petit Robert, Inventaire des particularités lexicales du français en Afrique en tenslotte Harrap’s dictionary, want hij wil tenslotte dat zijn verhaal zowel begrepen wordt door mensen die goed Frans spreken en ook door hen die, zoals hij, ‘petit nègre’ zijn. Zijn verhaal is verre van prettig en begint als hij na de dood van zijn moeder op zoek gaat naar zijn tante die hem moet opvoeden. Die tante is op de vlucht voor haar gewelddadige echtgenoot. Hij reist in twijfelachtig gezelschap van Ivoorkust naar Liberia en Sierra Leone. Omdat hij voortdurend in stammenoorlogen terechtkomt kan hij slechts in leven blijven door kindsoldaat te worden. Euforisch door de hasj staan de kinderen met hun Kalashnikovs in de voorste linies van deze zinloze slachtpartijen en ratelen er lustig op los terwijl de doden als vliegen vallen. Er zijn zoveel redenen om te doden en de ene is al zinlozer dan de andere. Op internationaal vlak wordt er wel flink vergaderd, maar dat maakt niet dat de corruptie er minder om wordt en de rijke landen, die hun afschuw laten blijken door boycots te lanceren en militaire afgezanten te sturen worden er ook beslist niet armer door.
Ahmadou Kourouma is een gedreven verteller en door het jongetje als hoofdpersonage te laten fungeren krijg je een soort hiphopverhaal dat elke verbeelding tart. Gruwelijk mooi.
October 19, 2017
Dipende da quello che uno chiede a un romanzo…
In termini di testimonianza sugli eventi (che sembrano incredibili ma da qualche fonte ho verificato essere realmente accaduti) di questo lontano angolo di mondo che sulla carta geografica corrisponde alle denominazioni di Liberia e Sierra Leone e in minor misura Costa d’Avorio e Guinea, il libro di Kourouma è indubbiamente efficace.
Le guerre tribali con soldati-bambini che imbracciano kalashnikov al posto di giocattoli, seminando morte e devastazione, in un contesto di stupri, torture, antropofagia, stregonerie e amuleti, sono storia in quei luoghi almeno fino alla fine del XX° secolo e francamente ignoro se oggi quei popoli se la passino meglio o se le suddette disgrazie siano ancora uno dei motivi per cui si rischia la vita nel Sahara e nel Mediterraneo pur di fuggire dall’Africa infernale che promana da queste pagine.
Questo orrore ci viene narrato in prima persona con totale disincanto da un undicenne che, dopo una prima infanzia tremenda ma non dissimile da quella di tanti suoi coetanei, passa al servizio di vari capi, capetti e leader (non mostri immaginari, ma nomi citati perfino in wikipedia…) per praticare l’unico gioco disponibile: assalire, sparare, seppellire altri bambini caduti, fuggire, assistere a ogni sorta di tortura.
Sul piano letterario invece il romanzo vale poco, basato sull’unico espediente di riprodurre ( o cercare di farlo…) il modo di esprimersi, intercalare, bestemmiare, blaterare di un bambino maturato non dall’inesistente educazione scolastica ma dalla durissima vita dei ghetti e dei villaggi contesi fra bande di sanguinari mercenari al soldo del dittatore di turno.
Ne risulta un andamento che ben presto si fa monotono e dispersivo, dove variano i nomi e le sigle dei diversi gruppuscoli di potere, variano (relativamente) le efferatezze, ma la storia rimane sempre la stessa: un’insensata carneficina che non ha vie d’uscita.
In termini di testimonianza sugli eventi (che sembrano incredibili ma da qualche fonte ho verificato essere realmente accaduti) di questo lontano angolo di mondo che sulla carta geografica corrisponde alle denominazioni di Liberia e Sierra Leone e in minor misura Costa d’Avorio e Guinea, il libro di Kourouma è indubbiamente efficace.
Le guerre tribali con soldati-bambini che imbracciano kalashnikov al posto di giocattoli, seminando morte e devastazione, in un contesto di stupri, torture, antropofagia, stregonerie e amuleti, sono storia in quei luoghi almeno fino alla fine del XX° secolo e francamente ignoro se oggi quei popoli se la passino meglio o se le suddette disgrazie siano ancora uno dei motivi per cui si rischia la vita nel Sahara e nel Mediterraneo pur di fuggire dall’Africa infernale che promana da queste pagine.
Questo orrore ci viene narrato in prima persona con totale disincanto da un undicenne che, dopo una prima infanzia tremenda ma non dissimile da quella di tanti suoi coetanei, passa al servizio di vari capi, capetti e leader (non mostri immaginari, ma nomi citati perfino in wikipedia…) per praticare l’unico gioco disponibile: assalire, sparare, seppellire altri bambini caduti, fuggire, assistere a ogni sorta di tortura.
Sul piano letterario invece il romanzo vale poco, basato sull’unico espediente di riprodurre ( o cercare di farlo…) il modo di esprimersi, intercalare, bestemmiare, blaterare di un bambino maturato non dall’inesistente educazione scolastica ma dalla durissima vita dei ghetti e dei villaggi contesi fra bande di sanguinari mercenari al soldo del dittatore di turno.
Ne risulta un andamento che ben presto si fa monotono e dispersivo, dove variano i nomi e le sigle dei diversi gruppuscoli di potere, variano (relativamente) le efferatezze, ma la storia rimane sempre la stessa: un’insensata carneficina che non ha vie d’uscita.
August 26, 2019
Till skillnad från många hobby-recensenter får jag aldrig s.k. bokpost. Gissar att min förkärlek för nya böcker på originalspråk ställer till det för de svenska förlagen. Det, och min ärlighet (a.k.a. hur högt jag klagar när jag inte gillar något...).
Den här boken är varken ny eller på originalspråk (Je ne parle pas français) - men den kom med bokpost! Inte av ett förlag, däremot rekommenderad av en vän (vilket ju är betydligt bättre). Och därmed fick jag en läsupplevelse jag definitivt hade missat annars (boken verkar slutsåld på alla onlinehandlare och fanns inte på några bibliotek).
Och nog är det en upplevelse. Barnsoldaten Birahimas ord flödar fritt och frankt, om fullkomligt horribla händelser. Till en början stör jag mig (som alltid med franska böcker, har jag insett) på översättningen (det blir liksom alltid lite skevt; ord som vi egentligen inte skulle använda på svenska - och det här med j istället för g i vanliga ord? gah!). Sedan inser jag att översättaren inte hade så mycket att komma med, för språket är något alldeles eget. I början blir man tokig på alla parenteser och upprepningar... sen inser man att det är just de som är det geniala men den här romanen. Och just den grejen; att något jag tänkt är undermåligt plötsligt blir riktigt smart - det imponerar!
Faktiskt till den grad att jag, som annars avskyr böcker som bara är hemska (ingen spoiler: är man barnsoldat är allt hemskt) kan lägga undan avskyn. Att Birahima är så grov och kompromisslös hjälper givetvis också - tillsammans med det faktum att han trots detta också beskriver hjärtskärande gråt flera gånger.
Författaren tappar mig i de längre styckena om Afrikas komplicerade politiska turer, och då och då funderar jag över om boken befäster stereotyper jag tänker att vi ska komma bort ifrån ("den mörka kontinenten" med eviga stamkrig och vidskepliga människor)... Samtidigt är det ärligt. Och som sagt; genialt och unikt skrivet. En upplevelse.
Den här boken är varken ny eller på originalspråk (Je ne parle pas français) - men den kom med bokpost! Inte av ett förlag, däremot rekommenderad av en vän (vilket ju är betydligt bättre). Och därmed fick jag en läsupplevelse jag definitivt hade missat annars (boken verkar slutsåld på alla onlinehandlare och fanns inte på några bibliotek).
Och nog är det en upplevelse. Barnsoldaten Birahimas ord flödar fritt och frankt, om fullkomligt horribla händelser. Till en början stör jag mig (som alltid med franska böcker, har jag insett) på översättningen (det blir liksom alltid lite skevt; ord som vi egentligen inte skulle använda på svenska - och det här med j istället för g i vanliga ord? gah!). Sedan inser jag att översättaren inte hade så mycket att komma med, för språket är något alldeles eget. I början blir man tokig på alla parenteser och upprepningar... sen inser man att det är just de som är det geniala men den här romanen. Och just den grejen; att något jag tänkt är undermåligt plötsligt blir riktigt smart - det imponerar!
Faktiskt till den grad att jag, som annars avskyr böcker som bara är hemska (ingen spoiler: är man barnsoldat är allt hemskt) kan lägga undan avskyn. Att Birahima är så grov och kompromisslös hjälper givetvis också - tillsammans med det faktum att han trots detta också beskriver hjärtskärande gråt flera gånger.
Författaren tappar mig i de längre styckena om Afrikas komplicerade politiska turer, och då och då funderar jag över om boken befäster stereotyper jag tänker att vi ska komma bort ifrån ("den mörka kontinenten" med eviga stamkrig och vidskepliga människor)... Samtidigt är det ärligt. Och som sagt; genialt och unikt skrivet. En upplevelse.
January 24, 2024
Au début du vingtième siècle, le sujet des enfants-soldats était très actuel. Pour cette raison, mes deux garçons ont du lire "A long way gone" d'Ishmael Beah. Pour la même raison on fait lire "Allah n'est pas obligé" d'Ahmad Kourama aux étudiants en lettres françaises dans les universités anglophones canadiennes.
Il faut dire que le roman donne l'impression que Kourama l'a écrit pour répondre à une demande au marché surtout dans les trente premières pages. Pourtant, plus le lecteur avance, plus Kourama se révèle comme un esprit indépendant et un satiriste talentueux . Aussi, le sort des enfants-soldats occupent de moins en moins de place et l'auteur parle plus du phénomène des guerres tribales en Sierra Léone et en Liberia à la fin du vingtième siècle . Ce qui a promis d'être une lecture pénible devient richement comique.
En principe, je suis contre la pratique de mettre des romans aux programmes universitaires parce qu'ils sont actuels mais "Allah n'est pas obligé" est un bon roman. Je le recommande fortement aux membres du grand public.
Il faut dire que le roman donne l'impression que Kourama l'a écrit pour répondre à une demande au marché surtout dans les trente premières pages. Pourtant, plus le lecteur avance, plus Kourama se révèle comme un esprit indépendant et un satiriste talentueux . Aussi, le sort des enfants-soldats occupent de moins en moins de place et l'auteur parle plus du phénomène des guerres tribales en Sierra Léone et en Liberia à la fin du vingtième siècle . Ce qui a promis d'être une lecture pénible devient richement comique.
En principe, je suis contre la pratique de mettre des romans aux programmes universitaires parce qu'ils sont actuels mais "Allah n'est pas obligé" est un bon roman. Je le recommande fortement aux membres du grand public.
March 3, 2009
There's nothing more endearing than a child soldier armed with an AK-47 and several dictionaries. Ahmadou Kourouma has created just such a character in the 10-year-old Birahima, a cheating, thieving, drug-addicted, machine-gun wielding narrator. He has decided to tell us his story, but on his own terms, as he says "Allah is not obliged to be fair about all the things he does here on Earth" and neither is Birahima. He tells us what he feels like, when he feels like writing, but be wary of him when he gets tired of narrating! He will curse like only a child-soldier can.
Birahima takes us through his experience making his way through war-torn Liberia and Sierra Leone by shifting alliances, lying, stealing, and killing. With the assistance of a crook grigriman Yacouba, he makes his way to his aunt after his parents have died. At the end of the grueling journey, across two countries and after many battles and near-death experiences, they find Birahima's aunt, dead in a warlord-run refugee camp.
Throughout the tale, we are heralded with funeral orations of the fellow child-soldiers that Birahima was friends with, sprinkled liberally with curses and sidenote translations from Larousse, Petit Robert, Glossary of French Lexical Particularities in Black Africa, and Harrap's.
We get a taste of the horrors of tribal warfare and dictatorships in Sierra Leone, Liberia and neighboring countries in the 90's. Bands of children armed with Kalashnikov rifles, high on hashish, are lead by warlords. Women and girls are beaten and raped. Girls' clitoris are excised. Soldiers march into battle sure that their grigris totems will protect them from the bullets that kill them. And through it all, Birahima narrates matter-of-factly as a child who has seen more than his share of life. Only three or four pages toward the end escape his narrative stream, and read as history of the military and political maneuvers in the region.
Here's a taste:
"Everywhere in the world a woman isn't supposed to leave her husband's bed even if that husband curses her and punches her and threatens her. The woman is always wrong. That's what they call women's rights."(26)
"Gio is the language of the Black Nigger African Natives in these parts, it's a patois. Malinkes call them bushmen, savages, cannibals on account of they don't speak Malinke like us and they're not Muslim like us. In our bug bubus the Malinkes look like they're kind and friendly but really we're racist bastards."(54)
"When you've got no one left on earth, no father, no mother, no brother, no sister, and you're really young, just a little kid, living in some fucked-up barbaric country where everyone is cutting everyon'e throat, what do you do? You become a child-soldier of course, a small-soldier, a child-soldier so you can have lots to eat and cut some throats yourself; that's all your only option."(90)
"I don't have to talk, I'm not obliged to tell my dog's-life-story, wading through dictionary after dictionary. I'm fed up talking , so I'm going to stop for today. You can all fuck off!"(91)
Birahima takes us through his experience making his way through war-torn Liberia and Sierra Leone by shifting alliances, lying, stealing, and killing. With the assistance of a crook grigriman Yacouba, he makes his way to his aunt after his parents have died. At the end of the grueling journey, across two countries and after many battles and near-death experiences, they find Birahima's aunt, dead in a warlord-run refugee camp.
Throughout the tale, we are heralded with funeral orations of the fellow child-soldiers that Birahima was friends with, sprinkled liberally with curses and sidenote translations from Larousse, Petit Robert, Glossary of French Lexical Particularities in Black Africa, and Harrap's.
We get a taste of the horrors of tribal warfare and dictatorships in Sierra Leone, Liberia and neighboring countries in the 90's. Bands of children armed with Kalashnikov rifles, high on hashish, are lead by warlords. Women and girls are beaten and raped. Girls' clitoris are excised. Soldiers march into battle sure that their grigris totems will protect them from the bullets that kill them. And through it all, Birahima narrates matter-of-factly as a child who has seen more than his share of life. Only three or four pages toward the end escape his narrative stream, and read as history of the military and political maneuvers in the region.
Here's a taste:
"Everywhere in the world a woman isn't supposed to leave her husband's bed even if that husband curses her and punches her and threatens her. The woman is always wrong. That's what they call women's rights."(26)
"Gio is the language of the Black Nigger African Natives in these parts, it's a patois. Malinkes call them bushmen, savages, cannibals on account of they don't speak Malinke like us and they're not Muslim like us. In our bug bubus the Malinkes look like they're kind and friendly but really we're racist bastards."(54)
"When you've got no one left on earth, no father, no mother, no brother, no sister, and you're really young, just a little kid, living in some fucked-up barbaric country where everyone is cutting everyon'e throat, what do you do? You become a child-soldier of course, a small-soldier, a child-soldier so you can have lots to eat and cut some throats yourself; that's all your only option."(90)
"I don't have to talk, I'm not obliged to tell my dog's-life-story, wading through dictionary after dictionary. I'm fed up talking , so I'm going to stop for today. You can all fuck off!"(91)
January 16, 2021
الله يفعل ما يشاء
الرواية باعتبارها مرآة لواقع الشعوب و ما عاشته من تجارب تعكس صورة عارية من كل زيف و تقدم لنا الواقع بكل ما فيه من جمالية و قبح و خير و سوء و مرارة و حقيقة مجردة من كل إيهام . و لإن كان النقد حاضرا لدى عديد الأدباء من بينهم أحمدو كوروما ( كاتب من ساحل العاج ) فإنه لم يخلو من جانب السخرية بل هو من أساسيات الكتابة لديه . الله يفعل ما يشاء ، كان من الضروري أن يضع هذا العنوان ليبين أن الأطراف التي رسمت مصائر بشر في دول عانت من المستعمر أو حتى من زعمائهم تتوهم أنهم قادرون على إخضاع الشعوب و كأنهم بلغو درجة أشد قوة من الإنسان . لقد أهدى روايته هذه إلى أطفال جيبوتي < لقد كتبت هذه الرواية نزولا عند رغبتكم . إلى زوجتي، لصبرها > . في هذه الحكاية السندبادية التي يرويها الطفل إبراهيما و أبطالها الأطفال و النساء خاصة الذين كانو من أكثر المتضررين في الحروب الأهلية بدول أفريقيا و في فترة الاستعمار و ما تبعها من حروب أهلية و نزاعات قبلية انجرت عنها مجازر رهيبة و بطل هذه الرواية إبراهيما الذي انظم الى "الجنود الأطفال " كما يطلق عليهم و من خلال تنقله بين معسكراتهم تبين لنا تجربته أن القتل و سفك الدماء و الغرق في الجهل و الابتعاد عن التعليم كما هو حال إبراهيما و الكثير من الأطفال من المصائر التي يراد أن يتبعها البشر هناك و منعهم من إدراكهم لحقهم في الحياة و العيش في الديمقراطية . نتعرف كذلك في الرواية على ثقافة مختلفة تبرز فيها التمائم التي يحتمي بيها الجنود خاصة و العديد من التقاليد و النزاع بين العشائر و الحقد و العداء حتى أننا نجد العنصرية حاضرة فيما بينهم بشدة! ما يغذي الصراع كذلك هو حب السلطة و السيطرة على مناطق الثروات مثل الذهب أما فيما يتعلق بالسياسة فنجد أن لعبة السيطرة قد اتسمت بالعناد حتى أن أحد الزعماء قام بقطع أيدي عدد كبير من الناخبين ليمتنعو عن التصويت يتواصل الأمر بين أخذ و رد و ومفاوضات و تحالفات في المقابل يتزايد إنتشار ال��نف و الفوضى و الشهوة الشبقية المفرطة و الإغتصاب و القتل و إستهلاك المخدرات من قبل "الجنود الأطفال" خاصة للدخول في غيبوبة و نسيان تلك المآسي و الأفعال الشنيعة التي ارتكبوها . كل هذا أورده الكاتب على لسان البطل و قد استعان باللغة الفرنسية للكتابة ليس كاختيار إنما لأنها لغة منتشرة في الكثير من الدول الإفريقية و قد تجنب اللغة الفرنسية الصافية و وظف مفردات خاصة بأفريقيا . الأبطال التعساء نتعرف من خلالهم على واقع أقل ما يقال عنه أنه مروع و مرير و فاسد و لا يغيب جانب السخرية بل نجده حاظرا بكثافة. إن هذه الرواية تعكس الواقع العاري من كل زيف .
الرواية باعتبارها مرآة لواقع الشعوب و ما عاشته من تجارب تعكس صورة عارية من كل زيف و تقدم لنا الواقع بكل ما فيه من جمالية و قبح و خير و سوء و مرارة و حقيقة مجردة من كل إيهام . و لإن كان النقد حاضرا لدى عديد الأدباء من بينهم أحمدو كوروما ( كاتب من ساحل العاج ) فإنه لم يخلو من جانب السخرية بل هو من أساسيات الكتابة لديه . الله يفعل ما يشاء ، كان من الضروري أن يضع هذا العنوان ليبين أن الأطراف التي رسمت مصائر بشر في دول عانت من المستعمر أو حتى من زعمائهم تتوهم أنهم قادرون على إخضاع الشعوب و كأنهم بلغو درجة أشد قوة من الإنسان . لقد أهدى روايته هذه إلى أطفال جيبوتي < لقد كتبت هذه الرواية نزولا عند رغبتكم . إلى زوجتي، لصبرها > . في هذه الحكاية السندبادية التي يرويها الطفل إبراهيما و أبطالها الأطفال و النساء خاصة الذين كانو من أكثر المتضررين في الحروب الأهلية بدول أفريقيا و في فترة الاستعمار و ما تبعها من حروب أهلية و نزاعات قبلية انجرت عنها مجازر رهيبة و بطل هذه الرواية إبراهيما الذي انظم الى "الجنود الأطفال " كما يطلق عليهم و من خلال تنقله بين معسكراتهم تبين لنا تجربته أن القتل و سفك الدماء و الغرق في الجهل و الابتعاد عن التعليم كما هو حال إبراهيما و الكثير من الأطفال من المصائر التي يراد أن يتبعها البشر هناك و منعهم من إدراكهم لحقهم في الحياة و العيش في الديمقراطية . نتعرف كذلك في الرواية على ثقافة مختلفة تبرز فيها التمائم التي يحتمي بيها الجنود خاصة و العديد من التقاليد و النزاع بين العشائر و الحقد و العداء حتى أننا نجد العنصرية حاضرة فيما بينهم بشدة! ما يغذي الصراع كذلك هو حب السلطة و السيطرة على مناطق الثروات مثل الذهب أما فيما يتعلق بالسياسة فنجد أن لعبة السيطرة قد اتسمت بالعناد حتى أن أحد الزعماء قام بقطع أيدي عدد كبير من الناخبين ليمتنعو عن التصويت يتواصل الأمر بين أخذ و رد و ومفاوضات و تحالفات في المقابل يتزايد إنتشار ال��نف و الفوضى و الشهوة الشبقية المفرطة و الإغتصاب و القتل و إستهلاك المخدرات من قبل "الجنود الأطفال" خاصة للدخول في غيبوبة و نسيان تلك المآسي و الأفعال الشنيعة التي ارتكبوها . كل هذا أورده الكاتب على لسان البطل و قد استعان باللغة الفرنسية للكتابة ليس كاختيار إنما لأنها لغة منتشرة في الكثير من الدول الإفريقية و قد تجنب اللغة الفرنسية الصافية و وظف مفردات خاصة بأفريقيا . الأبطال التعساء نتعرف من خلالهم على واقع أقل ما يقال عنه أنه مروع و مرير و فاسد و لا يغيب جانب السخرية بل نجده حاظرا بكثافة. إن هذه الرواية تعكس الواقع العاري من كل زيف .
February 18, 2010
"We left Kik to the mercy of humans in the village the we left Sarah to the mercy of the animals and the insects. Which of them was better off? Definitely not Kik. That's wars for you. Animals have more mercy for the wounded than humans."-- Allah is Obliged
This short book written by the late Ahmadou Kourouma follows the life of a street kid, Birahima (the book is written in his perspective), and a grigriman/ crook, Yacouba as they leave their home in the Ivory Coast to find Birahima's aunt Mahan.
As the two travel through Liberia, both end up joining numourous different factions, doing drugs and pilaging towns as they criss-cross West Africa.
Through the use of funeral orations, where Birahima explains how is fellow child soldiers ended up in the wars, the story tells the tale of murder, mutulation and rape during war, where kids become drugged soldiers for causes that the kids don't understand or care about, while mixing in history, though flawed, of the many wars and warlords of West Africa.
Overall, the story is strong, dark and explanative
This short book written by the late Ahmadou Kourouma follows the life of a street kid, Birahima (the book is written in his perspective), and a grigriman/ crook, Yacouba as they leave their home in the Ivory Coast to find Birahima's aunt Mahan.
As the two travel through Liberia, both end up joining numourous different factions, doing drugs and pilaging towns as they criss-cross West Africa.
Through the use of funeral orations, where Birahima explains how is fellow child soldiers ended up in the wars, the story tells the tale of murder, mutulation and rape during war, where kids become drugged soldiers for causes that the kids don't understand or care about, while mixing in history, though flawed, of the many wars and warlords of West Africa.
Overall, the story is strong, dark and explanative
June 7, 2021
Look, maybe I don't get literature or whatever but this book simply was not well written. The voice of the child that everyone was praising just put me off the entire time. I would be focused on the story when he decides to define a simple word for us. Like who is the audience?
This story did not need to be told in the first person. It should have been the third person. Even the story itself did not seem special to me. I am already kind of tired of reading about child soldiers in literature. Scientific works explain the phenomenon way better and I'll say that's a failure on the part of the author.
The reason I gave two stars is the different way this book deals with the Problem of Evil. Everyone is always trying to answer by saying God has a bigger plan, everything happens for a reason, or it's a human fault. But this book just says, God does not owe you an explanation and that was refreshing.
I just can't recommend this book.
This story did not need to be told in the first person. It should have been the third person. Even the story itself did not seem special to me. I am already kind of tired of reading about child soldiers in literature. Scientific works explain the phenomenon way better and I'll say that's a failure on the part of the author.
The reason I gave two stars is the different way this book deals with the Problem of Evil. Everyone is always trying to answer by saying God has a bigger plan, everything happens for a reason, or it's a human fault. But this book just says, God does not owe you an explanation and that was refreshing.
I just can't recommend this book.
June 8, 2023
"Je vais enfin pouvoir vous conter ma vie de merde de damné". À la mort de ses parents, Birahima part à la recherche de sa tante, long périple où, s'adjoignant Yacouba, les grigri (objets magiques protégeant contre les balles) et l'enrôlement comme enfant soldat lui ouvrent les portes tantôt de la Guinée, de la Sierra Leone et du Liberia en pleine guerre civile. Le récit des violences glaçantes où s'alternent Gyos, Krahn, Malinké, Kamajor et les Settlers, les clans de Samuel Doe, de Foday Sankoh, de Taylor, de prince Johnson et consort, les sièges, les viols, les amputations (""pas de bras, pas de vote"", encore que...) tout est nimbé d'une simplicité enfantine, d'un vocabulaire dont l'évocation coûterait son poste à plus d'un professeur, d'un fatalisme ("c'est la guerre tribale qui veut ça") comme coup de poing dans un gant de velour. Un récit qui éveillera le psychiatre bouddhiste / le nihiliste enthousiaste en vous.
June 22, 2018
I have a hard time putting my finger on what I didn’t like about this book.
I struggled to finish it and just never really enjoyed it. It hovered right around the “finish it or move on” line the whole way.
Part of it was the narrator. The irritating habit of constantly defining words that don’t need defining. The constant habit of repeating the same spiels verbatim over and over.
But mainly... there isn’t a single compelling or sympathetic character in this entire bloody and mad journey. It’s just a bedlam of insanity and ignorance. You would expect to feel pity or sympathy for a child in such circumstances, but I never really did.
Maybe that was the point. To show the madness and mindlessness of Africa’s plight. I don’t know. But it wasn’t an enjoyable read.
I struggled to finish it and just never really enjoyed it. It hovered right around the “finish it or move on” line the whole way.
Part of it was the narrator. The irritating habit of constantly defining words that don’t need defining. The constant habit of repeating the same spiels verbatim over and over.
But mainly... there isn’t a single compelling or sympathetic character in this entire bloody and mad journey. It’s just a bedlam of insanity and ignorance. You would expect to feel pity or sympathy for a child in such circumstances, but I never really did.
Maybe that was the point. To show the madness and mindlessness of Africa’s plight. I don’t know. But it wasn’t an enjoyable read.
February 9, 2011
The voice of "Allah is Not Obliged" flaunts the promise of an iconoclastic, irreverent narrator and instead devolves into Sierra Leone and Liberian history with the thinnest thread of violence and displacement woven throughout. The child solider narrator glamorizes his life without ever delving deeper than mentioning what get gets to eat, over-using repetition in an allusion to West African oral history, and somehow at the end we get a 60+ page overview of regional conflicts. Close, but no.
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